2011, here we come!

“When you breathe, you inhale and exhale, but every single time that you do that you’re a little bit different than the one before. We’re always changing. And it’s important to know there are some changes you can’t control and others that you can.” (from Dan Dunne, Half Nelson, apparently)

2010 was an interesting year. If I woke up in 2009, I actually got out of bed in 2010. In 2011, well, usually after getting out of bed I do a CrossFit workout so there, 2011 is going to be pretty intense!

So, a look back on 2010:
• Q1 in which I sprained my ankle, found heart, got completely smashed at a far-too-cold green dress run that is still one of my favourite hashes ever, and two boys named Mike inadvertently changed my life
• Q2 in which I moved to Africa and first walked in the door at heart and at Cape CrossFit. Enough said.
• Q3 in which I found my role at heart, started to develop new skills and become more self-aware.
• Q4 in which I learned I am not indestructible, witnessed how extreme pain and a burning platform can sometimes be exactly what is needed to break through a plateau and move on; exercised some extreme self-restraint in some areas and relaxed it in others, and travelled to the States, twice.

I’ve always thought resolutions were silly the same way I didn’t like goals. I’ve rethought goals, but not so much resolutions. You can’t just change yourself overnight, like paleo isn’t a diet it’s a lifestyle, and part of that is that you must understand the rules to choose to break them, but you can’t sustain something that’s impossible for you to sustain. Although yeah I could go through life without eating Doritos again, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll want a double-chocolate cookie that wasn’t made with almond meal. Or a latte, even though my body doesn’t like it.

I’ve found that it’s most sustainable for me to be very strict in certain areas for a limited period of time rather than trying to do it “forever” or something like that. And I already know what I need more of: sleep, planning, balance maybe?, and less of: anything non-paleo, including alcohol. I have a couple of types of competitions in the first two months of the year, and there is nothing like a goal or a deadline to focus the mind.

I will re-list here the great blog post I put on facebook from CFNE. Says it all, really.

So, no resolutions. Except the ones I need for the resolution swap at the hash Sunday. I am unreasonably excited for this, actually, bring it on!

2010 has ended for me with a bit of a whimper. I think I kicked my third illness in a row yesterday (sinus infection of some sort) but I still don’t feel strong enough today that working out hard is a good idea. The last few days I’ve spent staying out quite late (with friends watching Scotty D at Hennessy’s Tuesday night and can I just say that Scotty makes Counting Crows sound way better than they ever did!, then with Rob & Christian in the North End Wednesday night, and with a couple of girlfriends in Fanueil Hall last night).

Great dinner conversation before live music last night. I love Boston, I really do, part of my heart will always be here and who knows, I may be back some day. And I have some amazing people in my life.

I bought a new camera (which actually takes awesome night and low-light photos!), some Apple products for a friend, and homebrew supplies for another. This was funny I had such a cold when I went in there that I was commenting on the cherry grain and the guy told me I could smell it even with a cold and I could smell NOTHING.

So I may not be going to an end of the world party, and I may not have closed out the year with the Filthy Fifty (stupid, STUPID illness) but if I’m smarter than I am stupid I will be ready to take on the world tomorrow and the rest of the year. Goodness knows I will need to be strong for that; but then again so will we all. 2011 is going to be an amazing year, but also a really tough one. You can’t change that, all you can do is set your intention, decide how you are going to approach it, and manifest the world around you the way that you want. Just: be careful what you wish for and be very sure you actually want it. As I saw on my friend’s blog recently the following quote: “That it will come again is what makes life so sweet.” – Emily Dickinson


“So tell me about your diet. Do you want some bread?” – Christian
“It looks innocent enough.” – guy at Sichuan Gourmet, about the Gingu fish filet
“It’s the mark of a very, very young soul to try and fix the world.” — Chuck Palahniuk
“im a problem that will never ever b solved.” – D
‎"Americans will always do the right thing, after they've tried everything else." -Winston Churchill

How to make a Vermonter feel like a wuss

Have a gigantic bonfire in the middle of a blizzard, in about maybe 10 degrees F (that’s -12C). Well in my defense I was still sick, but I could barely handle being out there for 5 minutes! That’s sad, just sad …

But let me back up. I had driven down to Peru, VT, which is just east of Manchester. Manchester is where a lot of old money lives, and you can tell from looking at the houses in the center of town. So I have a friend who lives in D.C. whose family owns a renovated farmhouse in Peru, and what a gorgeous house! I always love architects’ houses, they are really something special. This one is a green (environmentally friendly) house, the only heat pretty much the entire time we were there was from a small wood stove, and the house was plenty warm. But not at all lacking in amenities: a 6 hob gas stove and brushed copper hood … anyway, a nice place.

The original plan was for me to come down Sunday, attend a Boxing Day party they were throwing with a bonfire, spend the night and head out Monday morning. Clearly, that didn’t happen. To begin with we started the evening by attending another Boxing Day party in town, at one of the old houses on the main strip. Nice party, and they weren’t kidding when they said there was food on every horizontal surface! And what party is complete without a red wine called Irony? We were there maybe 90 minutes before heading back to prepare for the party they were hosting, sadly we left before the Vermont state Senator arrived (although to be honest I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a crowd, my knowledge of U.S. and world politics being sadly lacking after 8 months on the Dark Continent).

Aside from not being able to hack standing outside by the bonfire, I had a great time at this Boxing Day party too, but when I woke up the next morning the blizzard was on in full effect, with some pretty hectic winds. It was like Cape Town winds, but with snow, and people were advised not to drive unless they had to. I didn’t have to, so I stayed. Unlike the four boys who decided to go skiing in those conditions. Nutcases. Unfortunately around noon or 1pm I started feeling even more sick; my fever must have really increased because all of a sudden I just felt like death. Apparently I picked up some pretty nasty North American germs from somewhere….

How to make a CrossFitter feel like a wuss? Give her a bed that’s so high she can barely climb onto it. Not even kidding. Now that is one heck of a fever.

After something like a 4-hour sleep I woke up, and came downstairs to be somewhat social. My fever had broken and I was “just” feeling weak and achy. Today is much better, still achy and a bit weak but overall, halfway human again. For dinner we had burgers, and then watched Monday Night Football (New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons). Not the best game in the world, but it was nice to watch football again. Watching Drew Brees through two picks in a row: not the best, although the second one (tip that led to a bobble and interception) was actually quite a thing of beauty. Of course, I was rooting for New Orleans both because they were the “underdog” and because a Falcons loss would give the Pats the best record in the NFL this year.

Somewhere over these few days, Laa-Laa hit his 100th box (he’s now on to 102 I think!), so congrats to him. Pretty sure no one else has done that so actually that makes him a bit of a CrossFit celebrity in his own right. It’s looking more like I’ll be visiting a friend in London rather than getting in a third continent, but that’s a choice I’m comfortable with. Crazy to think of seeing a good friend I haven’t seen in 10 years!

It really is beautiful here, looking out at the white snow and the brown trees coming up through it, and there’s definitely a distinct smell to the outdoors in winter. We even had a snowball thrown inside the house today! It’s also so convenient to be able to put things like beers and chicken stock outside to chill; on my last day in Cape Town we had to put red wine in the fridge because it was too warm to drink at room temperature! Hmm, North American germs aside this has been quite a hectic temperature change: from about 90F to 10F (or 33C to -15C).

I can’t wait to be fully recovered; I am still too weak and achy even to do mobility work and I am about as stiff as I could be! Sadly, I don’t think enforced rest due to illness really counts as rest days, although it’s resting some nagging injuries, yes, but the body must fight hard to heal itself. Even a wounded tiger is still a tiger!

And with that, I need to head back to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, before the sun goes down.

“Walking is not skiing.” – Bill

Laa-Laa’s 98th and 99th, Illness, and a White Christmas

Before I begin, copying from a friend’s Facebook posting:
The Hopi Elders Speak
The Elders Oraibi Arizona Hopi Nation

"We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For"

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.

And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.


Tuesday turned out kind of hectic as after the biggest plate of meat I think I have ever eaten, compliments of Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington (I was hungry, all right??), I fought food coma enough to sort through all my stuff and get the 5cm thick stack of paperwork into the mail. Then, I went home and took a nap since I had essentially been up since 4:30am local time, and there was a workout planned for 6:30pm.

So, as I mentioned before, my cult recruiter is this guy lovingly known as Laa-Laa. I am actually not sure the origin of this particular nickname, now that I think of it, but to me he’ll probably always be Laa-Laa. I am actually also not sure what he does for work, but I do know that on this trip he had planned to visit his 100th CrossFit box. Tuesday night was the 98th, and he had planned Commonwealth CrossFit, which is a new gym located in the basement of a church. Yes, you heard that right. I will take this opportunity to point out that I have Laa-Laa beat on continents right now, and in two weeks I’m planning to add one to the list and get a workout or two down in London when I’m there, assuming I can coordinate schedules. Of course, knowing Laa-Laa, I won’t stay ahead in this category for too long!

The workout was something I had never done before, called the 12 Days of Christmas (or CrossFit). You do 1 of the first exercise, 2 of the second then 1 of the first, then 3 of the third, 2 of the second, 1 of the first, etc. This evening’s lineup looked like this:
• 1 squat
• 2 situps
• 3 pushups
• 4 kettlebell swings
• 5 double-unders
• 6 kettlebell push-presses
• 7 burpees
• 8 good mornings
• 9 box jumps
• 10 steps walking lunge
• 11 tuck jumps
• 12 goblet squats

So before we get going, Laa-Laa says: “I’ll race ya!” Well, sadly, I was just a little sluggish and he got ahead of me quite quickly and wound up beating me by 1:02. I finished in 17:56. Of course we both got beat by this other girl who was using a smaller kettlebell and we also think cheated and somehow skipped an entire round. But c’est la vie.

After some photos of handstands for Jesus, we headed our separate ways so I could run home and grab some clothes (and 2 bottles of wine!). Since the hot water heater was out of commission (literally lying on its side outside the house …) Laa-Laa was nice enough to organise dinner & sleepover at a friend’s house in Lowell. It was snowing like something else out west in Bolton where I live, so the driving was quite slow as I wasn’t used to the snow and nearly wiped out heading into the driveway earlier in the day so I was a bit more tentative than usual. But, better safe than sorry, and it really was quite beautiful to see everything coated in snow.

Eventually I made it, and four of us had a lovely dinner followed by sitting in the living room playing “name the 90s band and song” to Sirius Satellite Radio and basically catching up. Well, Laa-Laa and I had a lot of CrossFit catching up to do too so I think we kind of monopolized the conversation/had a side conversation for most of the evening. We also wound up staying up quite a bit later than the others but hey, we had a lot to catch up about and it was his last night in town. At least there were only I think 5 bottles of wine consumed amongst the three of us (one person was drinking beer). I blame Laa-Laa but, I will say, he was in significantly worse shape than I was the next morning, but hey, I had a good time so no complaints.

I made us some scrambled eggs (8, between the two of us!) and we headed down to CrossFit Marlborough for what was supposed to be the first workout of the day and Laa-Laa’s 99th box. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t show up. Apparently his truck broke down on the way in! So, sadly, my dream to be with Laa-Laa when he hit his 100th box didn’t come true, so we drove into Boston, Laa-Laa re-packed his bag on the roof of South Station parking, we fed an apple to a really fat seagull, and hit up CrossFit Southie for another 12 Days of CrossFit workout. This one was epic:
• 1 burpee into a thruster (this is actually two separate exercises if you ask me, but whatever)
• 2 Turkish getups (1 each arm)
• 3 front squats
• 4 power clean & jerks
• 5 kettlebell swings
• 6 sumo deadlift high pulls
• 7 clapping pushups
• 8 knees-to-elbows
• 9 pullups
• 10 high box jumps
• 11 overhead squats
• 12 handstand pushups

I used 33kgs for this workout because I was a little scared to use 38. Probably a good thing, as I finished in 43:41, which was 1:19 before the 45-minute time cap. Then again, I didn’t really go all-out by any stretch of the imagination because I was a little bit scared of the workout! I was thinking this is a very silly workout, what sort of a metcon goes on for 40+ minutes, but Laa-Laa said it was a strength-con, so I said ok, fine, that makes some sense (not really, but what the hell). But let me tell you – not since Diane have handstand pushups been that hard, my goodness!

So while I’m on the subject, like any good cult we have our own language. A gym is not a gym, it’s a box. A workout is not a workout, it’s a WOD. Now this is all well and good until someone takes something like WOD and turns it into a verb. That: NOT ok in my book. The sentence was something like this: “You were tearing it up out there! You WODed much better than the last time you were here!” (the last time I was there I was also a) overtrained, b) doing wall balls which I stink at and c) had only learned pullups the day before). Speaking of which my pullup form is much improved as a result of this workout, actually, and I was going to try for doing a couple in a row except that I tore up my hand again and kind of thought better of it. Time to start taping maybe.

Laa-Laa and I said our goodbyes and I headed home to change and head to family Christmas dinner #1 in Manchester-by-the-Sea. This was fun, and the wine was good. Sadly, and I will blame lack of sleep rather than jetlag for this, by around 9:30pm I was fading fast and two consecutive cups of coffee had no effect. So, I took a nap because it’s not safe to drive while exhausted: trust me, I’ve nearly had a few accidents that way over the years. What’s also not safe? Drinking and driving; I was nearly killed by a drunk driver going 120 miles per hour (yes, miles, not kilometres) and suffice to say that I have never been so glad to be alive as when I got home that evening. But, alive I am, and no, it wasn’t my fate to die that cold snowy night.

The next day? Waking up with a sore throat (which I still have, darn it all!). Skipping the workout I had planned to go to. Letting go of the shore. Driving to Vermont. Accepting that I am different, here.

…and on Christmas my camera decided to die. Thanks for nothing, Canon. Lens error my right foot. Well, I’ll need to find a plan B to photo-document my activities. Or add warranty repair to my list of activities for the next two weeks.

But it was a white Christmas; there was snow on the ground and it even snowed a little! And, of course, great to see my family again, most especially my very wise brother. My mother even made a paleo dessert (version of reine de saba). So family Christmas #2 is now in the books.

This is annoying. I don’t like being sick. So I’ll quit whining, maybe take a nap, and prepare for a 2-hour drive down to Peru, VT for a couple Boxing Day parties and to catch up with a friend.

• “What the hell is paleo sushi?” “Exactly.” – Ellie, Laa-Laa (even better was the look on Laa-Laa’s face when I asked this question, but that one will have to stay in my memories unfortunately!)
• “You really like the metric system, don’t you?” “Ummmmmm, ahhhh, ummmmm …. Yeah! I do, actually!” – Laa-Laa, Ellie
• “People are looking at me like I’m crazy.” “Laa-Laa, you are crazy!” – Laa-Laa, Ellie
• “Oh, you’re the box guy.” – Chris, to Laa-Laa
• “One of the top 10 YouTube videos of the year is a cat that hissed at pictures of Justin Bieber.” – Rob (you can find that video here)

Setting goals, doubt, and getting burned

I think this was the most fun beach workout yet! I got there late because I was busy putting on sunscreen and didn’t account for that in my puttering around the house before heading out. Oops. But I wasn’t tremendously late, and got there when we were still doing mobility drills.

The first part of the workout was flag sprints, where you lie on your stomach with your fists together and your chin on your fists, then when told to go you jump up, run about 30m and try and grab a plastic “flag” (hollow tube about 1 foot long). There is 1 fewer flag than number of people per heat, so one person gets knocked out. Now, I won these flag sprints and then went to photograph the finishing line for the men and in the process got some sweet photos. But, I nearly didn’t win because I had my opponent beat and then eased up before actually having the flag in my hand. Stupid, stupid mistake … you should never do that! Lesson learned.

The second part of the workout was a team workout in teams of 4 we had to do the following:
• 200m partner carry
• 100 situps
• 100 pushups
• 100 squats
• 200m partner carry
The trick, though, was that for the middle portion only two team members could be going at a time and the other two had to be running the 200m. I was teamed up with Chris, Ralf, and Robert and it was quite awesome because we were all actually pretty evenly matched and so no one was slowed down and we were all able to go pretty fast. I say pretty fast because we were by far the fastest team so without competition I would say we were probably going at about 90%. Well, the running was maybe 80% for me to save myself for the other exercises, and then the rest I did at maybe 90-95%. Good stuff though.

I spent the rest of the day just relaxing. We had a group lunch at Sandbar (of course) and I gave my coaches their Christmas gifts, and then about 5 of us headed down to the beach where I stayed until about 4:30pm. This was not the plan; the plan was to go to a concert in Franschhoek. But it was hot, and I didn’t really feel like it. So I didn’t do it. Actually, I didn’t do much all day; I tried to read and was told to put the book away and just relax. So I did. I also got some damn good advice, again. I did practice handstands, which was fun. Some random guy came by to film this and for some reason I a) let him and b) tried whatever sort of strange drink he was marketing even though it contained such ingredients as “foaming agent” (in the words of Ralf: “It sounds like engine cleaner!”). Well, I was in a strange mood.

Unfortunately I managed not to put sunscreen very thick on some parts of my back and wound up getting burned. I actually even got some burn in areas where I did have the SPF 100. Must respect that African sun; and I was very happy to be lying in the shade. Yes, lying, not laying. Apparently I shouldn’t write blog posts when I’m tired. Time to invest in an umbrella I think.

Then that evening I attended a very chill braai, complete with waffles, ice cream, and Vermont maple syrup. Nothing like four CrossFitters and their sugar; not long after we ate this we all crashed pretty hard and it was bed time!

Sunday was a work day. I went over to my boss’ house for breakfast at 9:30am and stayed until almost exactly 9:30pm. We weren’t working the entire time of course; this was as much about bonding as it was setting goals and change management, although we did make good progress on a couple of very important issues. Oh, and drinking a couple bottles of wine. Actually, I hoped we would write down more goals but it’s ok, because we can do this offline and then share them. In some ways this might actually be better. Part of the conversation that I had on Saturday was around setting goals; because I am for whatever reason reluctant to set goals. I am results-oriented, and to me a goal is just a waypoint on a way to something bigger. So now I have 1 pullup, that’s lovely but is just a step on the road to 2, 5, 10, 20, etc. But, I have decided that it’s time to write down my goals for several reasons:
1. Committing something to paper helps focus the mind on the goal, and makes it real, and therefore easier to attain.
2. Without recording what you are trying to do, you risk missing the forest for the trees. Writing this stuff down may help refine the outcomes I am trying to create in various aspects of my life.
Well, I thought there were more reasons than that. Anyway those are the important ones. So before I left the gym this morning (it is now Tuesday 21 December) I erased my goals that had been on the board for like 6 months (and one of which had been achieved for about 5!) and wrote up a bunch more. Actually there are others that I didn’t have room to write down. It was time.

Monday morning dawned bright and HOT. I think it may have gotten up to 38 degrees. At least, it did according to my car; holy hell. This day was all about admin in the form of getting myself checked out at Mediclinic for physical and radiology (the good news: I still don’t have tuberculosis!), but more fun were the workouts! Yes, this is what I did for fun on my last full day in Cape Town.

The first one involved picking up Chris, one of the guys who trains at our gym. Again, I was late, I texted to say I would be right there only to turn my car on and realize I needed gas and hadn’t brought my garage card, so I had to run back to my apartment to get it, sigh …., and driving out to Stellenbosch to do a track workout. Did I mention it was really hot? This time I did bring water, though, and it was actually quite windy for Stellenbosch. Not that this is an excuse for anything of course (file it all under “constantly varied”) but boy there is nothing quite like hitting a wall of wind with 150m to go when you’re already a bit tired! Or the water pit 80m from the end… mini-obstacle course perhaps? On this day I ran one 400m at about 90% in 1:15.6, which is pretty much the same time I ran last time I did a track workout at 100%. I probably have a sub-1:10 in me with proper weather and shoes, and actually I want to see if I can find a competition to enter. That will knock off about 3-4 seconds right there. ;-)

After that I ran 2x300m. Chris pointed out to me that where I had started from the last time I did this workout was actually something like 30m short of 300m! So imagine my surprise when I ran my ‘real’ 300m in 54 seconds, which is 3 seconds faster than the call it 275m I had run a few weeks ago! The next one clocked in at 56.7, also slightly faster. Then I ran a 200m at 36 seconds which is basically the same pace I had been keeping for 300, so I was tired and stopped. About this workout I will say two things: 1. It’s nice to have someone else timing you (probably a bit more accurate, and also faster), and 2. This has got to be one of the best places to run on the planet. We also saw a pullup bar, so we could do benchmark workouts like Helen here (actually, Chris and one of our coaches are apparently going to do just that later this week, so I hope they have fun with that one!). Helen is 3 rounds of run 400m, 21 kettlebell swings, 12 pullups. Not easy.

We had a nice lunch at some hidden-away place in Stellenbosch (The Big Easy doesn’t do breakfast, apparently, or at least not on week days). This place was mainly notable for the fact that it was misting water to keep us cool: “Not very good for the toast” according to the guy who was probably the owner, but since we weren’t eating the toast anyway we were happy for it.

The second workout of the day was the 5:30 workout at CCF, which consisted of practicing handstand walk (I walked about 2 steps away from the wall then fell down …, and discovered that going sideways along the wall is in fact easier when you are doing it freestanding!), then in teams of 3 do as many rounds as possible in 22 minutes of row 500m, 10 steps walking lunge, 20 box jumps, and 10 steps walking lunge. Two team members rest while one is working. I really wished I’d gotten to a third round, but the first two were super fun and properly hard! I happened to set a new PR on the 500m row on my first round (1:48, my previous best was 1:49.2, and imagine how fast I could row if that was all I was doing!). Then, afterwards, just for fun I tried to do a chin-up (pullup with arms facing me). This is a very awkward position for my shoulders, but you have more strength this way so rather than trying to kip or anything I just pulled myself up. It was actually kind of a funny process because I pulled myself about a third of the way up, thought “huh,” pulled myself a little further up, repeated the process, etc. until finally I got my chin over the bar. So I guess what I’m trying to say is I made that about as difficult as I could have for myself.

So that evening I had invited some friends over for goodbye drinks. When I was making dinner and cleaning up I realized that I actually wasn’t much in the mood to be social so I was actually quite relieved when I got like 4 texts in a row from people bailing out at the last minute. But the crew who did show up were awesome, and some of my favourite people. I even got my first gift of the season, and gave out SIGG water bottles to some of the gym crew (Swiss, not Swedish!), and a housewarming gift for my friend Jo, who stayed chatting with me until 1am! That was not exactly what I had intended, but what was, was, and I had a great time.

The next morning also dawned quite hot, and I went for my last CCF workout of the year: Barbara. Actually, to be more specific ½ Barbara mainly because that’s what everyone else was doing, and also because my pullup technique is not great and 20 pullups in a row even with a band would have taken me a while, thereby defeating part of the point of the workout. So the version of Barbara that we did was 5 rounds of 10 pullups, 15 pushups, 20 situps, 25 squats, and then 2 minutes rest. The first round felt really easy, like I could do it all day. Second round, same thing (and was actually faster than the first because I was more warmed up). By the third round I got a little confused and lost some of my pullup technique so that slowed me down by about 10 seconds, then the fourth and fifth rounds were a little more challenging but still manageable. Lesson learned: next time either less rest or more reps. But still, it was good fun.

Yes, if you were counting this was my third workout in less than 24 hours! I am planning a repeat of this (well, actually even worse I suppose: 6:30pm, 8am, noon!) with Laa-Laa/Navy Mike when I get back in to Boston. I would not ordinarily train this close to such a taxing plane ride but he’s not in town that long and he’s my cult recruiter and I haven’t seen him in like 10 months. So, very excited!!

After the workout I showered and changed into my official travel uniform, spent about 10 minutes thinking up and writing down goals on the board, said my goodbyes, and headed to Camps Bay for one last omelette before heading home to do dishes, pack, etc. Oddly enough, it was only at Sandbar that I felt twinges of sadness; strange.

I had a little more admin to do on that last morning; a few calls to Joburg later I was good to go. I was leaving my car at the office in the parking garage for these few weeks, and met my boss there who took me to the airport. In our car ride we discussed rest, balance, risk taking, behavioural psychology, and creating virtuous cycles rather than vicious ones. Also, the definition of irony, and manifesting the outcome we need. I did my piece to manifest this with a couple texts while waiting for my plane to JNB. On the subject of risk: you may well get burned, but I do believe it’s by pushing yourself (and maybe others around you??) over the edge that great breakthroughs are made. And, you will never make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

The trip itself was relatively uneventful; I inhaled one and a half books and got a good amount of sleep in. There were people playing vuvuzelas in the Johannesburg airport which I found quite amusing. Security found it not quite as funny. I spent quite a bit of time on the plane ride from Johannesburg to Washington doing mobility work – I think probably 20 minutes or so total, maybe more. Well, on something like a 20-hour flight I probably should have done more but after the stop-off in Dakar the guy in the seat next to me left and no one filled it so for most of my sleep I was able to stretch out over two seats and that helped mobility quite a lot. When I got to Washington we had to stand in a huge long queue for immigration, and I was a little worried I would miss my flight and since I don’t have my American cell phone that might have made for some good times. Luckily, I had enough time not only to catch the flight but to do a Starbucks run. Now I have THAT out of my system.

OK this flight to Boston is now descending so it’s time to shut down (good timing). We will see what this trip brings.

• “They’ll make a plan. They’re Swedish.” – Peter (?? OK I found it funny)
• “If you are not living on the edge how are you going to see the view?” – overheard at a party
• “Just get your stuff sorted out. OK?” – Roland
• “It should have been a cow.” – Chris
• “It’s ok. This is a free country. Unlike Europe!” – random guard at O.R. Tambo, in response to being asked if fingernail clippers were ok to bring through security
• “When are you coming back?” – another random guard at O.R. Tambo
• “Mass? That’s probably about the only place colder than here.” – immigration officer at IAD
• “How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?” – The Rabbit


“Does this sound like a cult leader to you?: ‘Nothing in this world must stop us from achieving our goal. Certainly not doubt.’”
“No, it sounds like words of a very wise man. Why do you ask?”
“Doubt.”

Seeing the future

As someone very close to me is quite fond of saying, most people can’t comprehend a vision: they need to see, touch, taste, something tangible. I may not be a visionary, but I can see a vision. Yesterday I saw the future, I could literally see construction going on, and a bunch of houses. It’s a strange thing for me, because I can look at an empty field and see possibility and can’t see how others can’t, but then again if I encounter a boulder in my path I go around it and I guess most people have a hard time with that, too. It is always so difficult to try and see at the world as other people do! Usually, I don’t try because I would just fail and also, what is the point? Understanding, and I mean fully understanding, the world as I see it is something I can’t even do more than 5% of the time, so it’s a bit of a losing battle to try and understand too much of how others see the world.

We were out touring sites for potential affordable housing developments and, it’s not really possible to get together with this one guy who was out touring around with us today without getting a couple of good insights. The one not directly related to the project that I’ll share is that he told me most businesses don’t work on paper, and he could have been speaking words out of my own mouth in saying that you just need to get in there and try things, see what works, and what doesn’t, and then do the detailed business planning. But it’s a big challenge: you need to do enough legwork that you don’t waste time and money doing something stupid, but obviously you can’t sit and plan everything to the n-th degree. Funny, too, we were talking later about this guy and how he really didn’t need to accompany us today on these site tours. But, he had his reasons, some of which we know and some of which we can only presume.

Oh and while I’m on the subject? Blue Downs has some storefronts like something out of the American wild, wild west! Too cool!

So. That aside, this has been an interesting end to the week. Wednesday most of the organisation was out in Khayelitsha at the GrowZone build. I stayed behind at the office with our HUB host, trying to get a planning session in among hosting a corporate that had rented out some space. Well, I’ll admit it’s somewhat calming to be doing dishes and turning off the lights on the last day of the year. I spent the rest of the day doing what can really only be described as admin, in the worst sense of the word. Necessary admin, but admin nonetheless…

I did have the pleasure of meeting this woman who kind of shocked the heck out of me by coming out with a couple of statements that rocked my world a little bit. It’s always shocking when someone makes a global statement and it applies very particularly to you! I also learned yet another reason I shouldn’t drink…

Speaking of drinking, Wednesday evening was the end of year heart braai at Peter and Mandy’s place. Well, we learned that the dogs don’t respond either to no or to nie when there is meat involved (imagine that…) and that my liver remains legend. Some of us planned a FoodTents hiking/camping trip, some others of us planned to take over the world, the words “I can’t even look at you without smiling” were spoken, and the children only broke one glass. I learned that I should never get on the wrong side of my one co-worker who apparently has semi-magical powers because he’s in IT (and I believe it, too!).

I also started a very interesting conversation about the power of the brain, and continued it Friday. So it’s a myth that we only use 10% of our brain (usually we don’t use more than about this at any one time just like we don’t usually exercise all our muscles at one time), but similar to the interval training you can do with your brain to focus on one thing rather than getting distracted by other things, I wonder if you could train yourself to use more of your brain all at once. This is all I’m not sure about, is are the things I am doing now to expand myself physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally all that I could be doing, or am I doing things (other than drinking, of course …) that are counter-productive? The other interesting aspect is other animals: to what degree are they often using a greater proportion of their brain at any given time than we humans? The 10% myth aside, if we consistently use less, that implies first of all that we might have the power to use more, but also raises the interesting question of how we evolved in such a manner: what is the evolutionary advantage?

Following the braai, I met up with some friends at the Biscuit Mill Christmas market. And, since it’s the Biscuit Mill, ran into a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in ages, drank a coffee stout which was quite good, and took a pretty hilarious photo that you can see above. I also bought a gift for my little brother, so the market served its purpose!

Thursday was a public holiday. I started off with a nice yoga session that gave me good opportunity to practice putting myself in the zone. Yeah holding your arms extended at a 60 degree angle for 6 minutes could, in theory, be hard, but it’s actually not if you know how to do it properly. The afternoon provided a nice opportunity as well for mind over matter as I took my friend who left town the next day (Friday) hiking Table Mountain (her idea). We hiked the simplest but most boring route (Platteklip Gorge), and I was supremely amazed at how easy I found the hike. Actually, I think I barely broke a sweat from exertion (a little bit from temperature). Pretty cool. Sadly it was cold and windy up top and everything was closed, so we took a few photos and charged back down the mountain.

The hike was great, though: we talked a lot about work (she had been interning), and my relationship with certain individuals at work and outside of work. This woman is very insightful, and she gave me food for thought in two particular areas that I’ve had my brain cranking on ever since. Yep.

I stopped by the gym briefly to foam roll so my legs would recover better (it worked like a charm!), and practiced a negative handstand pushup (quite hard), and chatted to some of the guys there before I had to run off. Dinner at Bombay Bicycle Club was beyond lovely, and I took the opportunity to eat things I don’t normally eat. Surprisingly I feel ok, but I won’t be doing that again anytime soon!

The rest of the evening was pretty chill, coffee and laying on a roof deck checking the stars and the outline of Table Mountain. Then I went home to sleep because I was tired!

Friday morning I dropped my friend at the airport, sat in traffic (!), and the rest I’ve already talked about. Then, instead of going right to the beach like a good girl, I accepted an invitation to have some wine. Three plus hours later, I finally left to pick up my friend and go to the beach. In the interim, I got a thorough psycho-analysis that was scarily accurate based on my answers to a series of questions about how I visualized a forest and certain objects I found within the forest. During a certain part of this in particular I was thinking “oh, so true, SO true …” I also shared the story of laughing uncontrollably at the thought of only working four hours a day, and got the same exact reaction (both times I brought it up, actually!). There is something a bit contagious here, I think. I also got pushback on my long-held opinion that I’m an intellectual snob. Now I’ll need to mull this one over…

Anyhow, much-needed beach time. Practiced my freestanding handstands, which are getting much better! This is apparently also a way to attract the attention of people walking along the beach. They either come over and say “is that all you’ve got?” (to which what to do but demonstrate handstand pushups), or come over to compliment you. But eventually I got sick of this and took a nap, followed by dinner at home then out again to a house party in Vredehoek to catch up with a friend who is in town for a few days. Second night in a row laying on a deck looking up at the stars, but this time discussing econometrics!

Almost done!

So tomorrow (Wednesday) is our last official working day of the year. Of course, I’ll be working after that day.

Nonetheless. It hasn’t escaped most people, probably, that if my original plans were still in place this would pretty much be it for me in terms of working here in South Africa. I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know this: I am very, VERY good at what I am doing right now. Am I perfect? Hell no. Do I make mistakes? Absolutely. Do I let some things drag on longer than I should? Yep. But as my co-worker once said, he’s seen people crack under a lot less than what I’m doing, and I’m totally fine with it. I do wish some things were different, and I wish there were more hours in the day, more days in the week, and I wish that my own level of mental discipline could approach that of my boss. But, I’m a work in progress. Aren’t we all?

One thing I am learning through external feedback is that whatever I’m getting from here or from my own spiritual/emotional/intellectual development is that I am developing a comparative advantage at working with people. Not always, certainly, sometimes when I have too many things going on I miss certain signs or I’m not as gentle as I should be. But this is why I need coaching: it’s great that I’ve developed the capacity to be self-critical over the years but just as coaching at the gym will only make me better, so will spiritual and business coaching. I think I know my spiritual coach; I met her a few months ago and keep thinking I need to reach out to her. Well, the universe is probably trying to tell me I do because she came up as a subject of conversation after dinner last night. I also think I may have found my business coach, or possibly two; I’ll be exploring both options in January.

The two days of this week so far were a bit unusual:
• Monday started off with a visit to the N2 Gateway RDP housing project in Langa with a bunch of SA property bigwigs. This is an interesting case study of low cost housing gone wrong, and there are lessons to be learned here in terms of what not to do. Also, we keep hearing the same advice over and over again, which means we’d be fools not to follow it. Always good to pick the brains of experts!
• I was back in the office for all of an hour before having to take my co-worker to the airport. I said it would take me 15 minutes to get there, and it took 14. Stupidly I took the M5 back so it took me 20 to get back to the office.
• I squeezed in a few hours of work and a soul-crushing phone call with Orbitz before heading to Hout Bay for a meeting with GreenLiving about a potential collaboration.
• I went to the gym in the evening Monday which is unusual for me. We were doing power cleans and my form was improving a little bit and I didn’t go crazy with the heavy weights. The second part of the workout was Tabata front squats (20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest), with in my case 24kgs. Erm, may I just say that my legs felt like jelly after that!! That is unusual for me, so good for the workout to do that to me.
• Monday night dinner with friends in Muizenberg. Something I ate (either the cheese or the chickpeas) gave me an incredible stomach ache! Moral of this story: stick to the paleo stuff …
• Tuesday morning’s workout was actually really fun! They always are of course but there are levels! After max ring dips we moved into a workout of 1 minute on, 30 seconds rest of in my case kettlebell swings, ring dips with band assistance, and weighted situps. Super fun workout!
• Tuesday had some FoodTents discussions including such quotes as “I wanted just to say ‘deflate yourself here china!’” (you had to be there, but I will remember this with amusement), and then a group of us headed out to Khayelitsha to meet with the Masikanye Food Garden crew where we are putting in the 10 tents of a GrowZone tomorrow. We took them over to Mama Rosie’s in Philippi, then went to check their other garden including some hydroponic tomatoes in Macassar. Driving in the Cape Flats is always interesting; today I had to dodge not just the usual people and vehicles but also goats! Usually those stick to the side of the road and don’t decide to come running into the middle of the road but then again you never know … I saw a black bear in Bolton Mass. less than a year ago.
• Then we moved the Purple Heart furniture which was actually incredibly heavy! Workout of the day #2 …
• The afternoon was a bit chaotic but I did manage to change my flights on Orbitz (apparently the fourth time was the charm…). Eish.
• I went to yoga because I wouldn’t have much of a chance to go the next few weeks, although there is a place in Cambridge or Somerville somewhere. But anyway. This teacher is usually pretty chill; today’s session was not! Something about power, so I guess it figures…

I also got two incredible compliments these last two days. Last night my friend who I really have a lot of respect for an in intellectual and emotional level said that she didn’t know anyone more sure of what they are doing than I am. This means a lot coming from her (right up there with one of the real athletes from the gym giving me respect as an athlete). Then today I had a brainstorm for which I can thank McDonald’s actually, that may revolutionalize the business model of FoodTents (I won’t get too excited until I dig into the numbers for myself!), and my boss called me a few hours later to thank me for my brilliant insight for over 6 minutes. But then again, what is actually important is not the acceptance of other people, that is just my ego being interested in that. However, I’m not completely over my ego I’m afraid!

Actually one interesting thing I have found about working in South Africa is that while there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of strong women here, it remains quite a paternalistic society in a lot of ways. I think it surprises a lot of people when they meet me that someone both so young and female is doing what I’m doing, for one thing, and for another thing, not afraid to challenge them. I was joking the other day with my co-worker that I am developing a bit of a fan club, but I won’t complain. It’s a good thing, because it’s these tight personal bonds that enable you to get things done. And if the respect is mutual, it’s exactly what you need!

Some fun stuff planned before I head back to New England!:
• Planning meetings for 2011 (starting tomorrow morning and continuing on Sunday and possibly Friday afternoon as well)
• Work braai
• Christmas market at the Biscuit Mill
• Public holiday Thursday … I have a couple of things I may do; not sure yet
• Checking out some potential sites for our affordable housing development Friday morning
• Errands Friday afternoon (getting forms filled out at Mediclinic, and getting some documentation certified by the police, which should be an experience in and of itself!)
• Saturday beach workout then the final lunch at Sandbar for a while :(
• Concert at Backsburg wine estate (featuring Die Antwoord, Jax Panik, Goldfish, and Locnville, so should be a ton of fun!)
• Track workout at Stellenbosch (it will be too cold and snowy to sprint outside in New England)
• Party Monday night so I can see a bunch of people before I go

I really want to get a hike in at some point before I go; we’ll see if that works out for me…

I'm an idiot

OK, it’s not quite that bad. But for someone who has been trained and is supposedly good at seeing market gaps I missed a BIG one, which is a market in Cape Town where you can consistently get fresh, organic veggies AND your grass-fed meats AND (well you get the idea). I have to run all over town sourcing these things, and if I miss a weekend at the Biscuit Mill … well it’s better now than it was because I can buy the good meat from the gym. But really. Took my co-worker suggesting this as a way to make sure that our GrowZone entrepreneur/franchisees could make a good living from growing organically. Well, heck, if the numbers make sense maybe we’ll make it happen. First thing is to ask Wild in Woodstock why they aren’t already doing this, and whether they’d potentially be interested in collaborating.

Also this morning I figured something out that in retrospect is so incredibly obvious that I was an idiot not to see it sooner, and an even bigger idiot for taking so long to figure it out! See, when something is not internally consistent there is always a reason why, and Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be true. So, in this case, the answer to my puzzle was not only staring me in the face, but had literally been said to my face, and I missed it because I thought it wasn’t the main message. Puzzles, always puzzles. Well, that’s what keeps life interesting I suppose, except that when I can’t figure something out, my nature is such that I keep trying. Sometimes I think it might be better to bash my head against a brick wall! Anyway this is a long story and not interesting to pretty much anyone except for me so I won’t bore y’all with the details.

I will again repeat the power of kundalini yoga – usually I go in there and just try and clear my brain so that whatever it does to my brain just happens. Today I didn’t even bother, I just let my mind go and it spun and spun and spun and then finally I figured out what I was thinking about. Back to that whole sometimes you can get where you want to go by letting up a little bit; not the easiest type of thing for a type A personality!

Also, shocker, the world doesn’t revolve around me, and because of our egos we all tend to forget this. Sometimes when you think something is about you, it’s actually about somebody else.

So, an interesting weekend all the way around and if I had to sum up how I feel right now it is incredibly at peace, but also extremely excited for the future.

Saturday started with the beach workout. Like an idiot I didn’t put on sunscreen so I wound up getting a little sunburn/wind burn. We met at Camps Bay and then the wind was so crazy that we moved to Clifton where it’s usually better but it was still pretty bad there. Our warmup was to run to the end of the beach and back and on the way back the wind came up and seriously it was like sandstorm hectic – I was yelping with pain as the sand hit me and tried to run behind a big rock! That was some serious exfoliation.

The workout itself was fine, although we didn’t beat the other team at the metcon part because we were not doing the same workout (I am not going to say they were cheating because it’s actually true that we just interpreted the rules differently). Then we jumped in the ocean, and moved back to Sandbar where we had lunch including some amazing double chocolate cookies one of the guys had brought from the Biscuit Mill. I had a bit of a surreal experience here, I was talking to these guys something about a yacht in Bali and then all of a sudden I thought of Mama Rosie and her son who died in the shack fire and I realised just exactly how separate our worlds were. Sometimes knowing something intellectually and having it actually hit you are two different things!

There was another weird experience at this lunch where one of our coaches was talking about paleo man and how paleo man would do something like work for 4 hours and then play around for 4 hours, and that this was more natural or something. I just burst out laughing and couldn’t control myself, it was very strange. The thought of only working four hours a day is just unfathomable to me. I am not sure I could do that. But the uncontrollable laughter was also very strange…

After lunch I headed to the market, and my streak of being able to go in there and do some surgical shopping came to a crashing halt as I ran into a couple of people. Apparently there’s going to be a good party a week from Tuesday but I might not be in town. Hoping to get back to Boston in time to catch Laa-Laa, who leaves on the 23rd. On this week, my freebie from the grass-fed meat guy was some lamb pomegranate sausages which were amazing!

The evening featured two braais, and mixing about every kind of alcohol you can think of! I started with home brewed beer, and moved on to red wine, mojitos, more red wine, then finally martinis at Asoka! And today I feel fine, albeit a little dehydrated. And I do want to report that the CrossFit boys ate most of my cookie because I temporarily abandoned it. Guess that’ll teach me to leave an undefended cookie around but hey, I didn’t really need the calories anyway.

As I write this I am sitting in the same café in Kalk Bay that I went to last weekend. Wow, I can’t believe last weekend was only a week ago, it actually seems like about three weeks. I needed to come here to clear my head and get some work done; somehow motivation today to work at home wasn’t the best! I think I was sitting at the Wellness Warehouse with a couple of people and it took me about an hour from when I started talking about leaving actually to get around to doing it!

I think I’m giving up milk again. It’s just not working for me. Also, I really don’t like marshmallows. Why do you give out marshmallows with coffee anyway? Strange…

Unrelated (makes sense, there’s not much in my world related to marshmallows!): I’ve been thinking a lot recently about loss aversion bias. This essentially says that we fear loss much more than we enjoy the potential for reward. This is why it is not natural for us to take risks, and why most people never jump off of proverbial cliffs. It’s also why we get stuck in ruts, and it happens so gradually you may not even necessarily realize you are in the Grand Canyon of a rut! I was in more than a bit of a rut at my old job, I was quite bored. Got some news yesterday that my old boss, the CEO, had been fired by the board. Don’t know a lot of details as to why, but that’s interesting. I am curious to see what happens next. I guess it will be kind of exciting to go back and catch up with my ex-co-workers, one of whom is going through a really tough time personally just now so hey maybe I can provide some emotional support of my own.

But back to the loss aversion bias: I think the core lesson here is that we must be more thoughtful about our decision-making. This cartoon says it best. And, actually, I am now thinking back to the one part of the conversation I had in this very café that stuck with me, when I was asked what, exactly, I am afraid of. Good thing to ask yourself whenever you catch yourself afraid to do something, or trying to talk yourself out of doing something like finding a new job, or moving to a new place, asking out that cute girl across the room, or even just throwing yourself into something fully. Hmm, like lifting heavy weights: if you don’t believe you can do it, you won’t, but if you give it a try you might just succeed. So: what are you afraid of?

“It’s a paradigm shift to what’s in the market. It’s almost too good to be true. It’s definitely something that doesn’t exist.”

Words every entrepreneur wants to hear! I couldn’t actually believe the words coming out of this guy’s mouth, and this isn’t exactly a guy off the street – this is a co-founder of a very well-known South African company, who currently has his fingers in about 15 other pies, looks like. On a separate note, excited in advance to have coffee with this guy in January and talk coaching rather than affordable housing. I wonder if it’s because SA is a smaller market than America, but in general I have been more impressed with the calibre of executive-level business people I have met here than the ones I have worked with in America. Broad generalisation I know, but I’ll stick by it.

Having said all that, a lot of work still to do in terms of validating assumptions with the target market and working to co-create some specifics of the vision. Emailing just now one of our friends/advisors who is in Switzerland who essentially says the same thing. Industry experts are a great kickstart but they can only take you so far.

So this week has so far been the very definition of hectic. Tuesday I did whatever I normally do in the office (management I guess…), then off to this market research meeting at a swanky hotel in Claremont, back to the office, then off to the Philippi Farmers Market to check in with the GrowZone there and then to take the gardeners to Mama Rosie’s place, and back. We are having some challenges with growing vegetables organically rather than using chemical fertigation. Now, obviously from a moral, health, environmental, etc. standpoint I would much prefer to go organic, but actually it should not be our decision because who are we to decide on behalf of the entrepreneurs we are trying to enable? If you can grow things significantly faster and healthier using chemical-based fertilizers, and that translates to a significant difference in income and food production, isn’t that better, actually? It’s strange I’ve had a bit of a paradigm shift on this myself the last few days seeing in person the difference that it makes, and it is stark. Also, the lessons of community engagement are important and stepping back to realise when I may be pushing my own values and assumptions onto others unfairly, because of the influence that I have, is key.

Actually this all gets back to the co-creation theme which is actually my word of the year. Until this year I didn’t even know what the word meant, and now I live it every day. On a related note, until I got to Cape Town I was good at reading body language, yes, but I have developed such a greater insight into people here it’s a bit amazing. Here, it’s intuition: when I travel back to the U.S.A. I can do it, but like a skill I have to dig out of my brain rather than something that comes naturally. Strange, perhaps, in some ways. Perhaps not in others. I have been told it’s the spirituality of the mountain, or some spiritual fault line … who knows, all I know is how my mind works. Actually even being able to observe this about myself is a pretty fundamental paradigm shift; similarly my body. I was realising this morning on the drive into work that my shoulders felt tight, well, we did press yesterday and although they are not sore, they are tight. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this a year ago.

Tuesday night (and a decent portion of Wednesday morning; I think I left around 1:30am) was spent at my boss’ house working on this business case. For the most part I was reviewing the doc and offering comments. Due to the lack of sleep I missed the workout Wednesday and woke up early to work a section on how, specifically we would approach launching the business, and also on the flow of the document. Then, after stopping by to go over my work, I went by the office to check in briefly with the people there and then back where I wound up writing the financial analysis section. Here is where I got a taste of my own medicine where I wrote this whole section and forgot to include the most important piece of data which is the profitability of the enterprise! Well, as I said I got to spend most of my time pointing out the holes in the other part of the document so to have my ass handed back to me was really only fair, and sometimes do you do in fact miss the forest for the trees.

Speaking of insights, I experienced some road rage in the morning on the way from my place to Newlands. Then, I was eating all the fruit in sight … this is not normal; this is stress. It’s very interesting to step back and observe these things about yourself rather than just getting buffeted along with the flow of things. Well, this is what A New Earth teaches you to do, actually. I’m not so sure I even need to read the rest of the book (although I will), in terms of figuring out how to generate the awareness in terms of observing my own behaviour, ego, feelings, stress levels, etc. But speaking of stress, I wrapped up my work around 6:30 and went to get one of the interns from our office, who is going back to Denmark in a week or so. On the drive to the office I literally felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders because even though we still have a lot of work to do, delivering the business case by a deadline was important and stressful, but turned out to be key because our Swedish investor apparently considered the fact that we hit our commitment around the deadline to be extremely important.

So we went down to Hout Bay for dinner, and I at least had a fantastic time talking and getting insights from this intern into various things and people. She’s very cool because she has a much more natural gift of understanding people than I do, or at least she has discovered this capability within herself at a much younger age and therefore has had more time to practice it. But I was also surprised because we were talking about her and an area that I considered to be one of her comparative strengths was an area that she thought was a weakness. Which just goes to show, I suppose, you never know how you look through other people’s eyes!

Thursday was spent doing some planning and discussing a very exciting re-branding we are planning for early next year. Then we had a long check-in meeting about the Hub, after which I headed to the Old Mutual headquarters in Pinelands for a meeting with one of our key advisors, who gave me a ton of insight into a lot of things around FoodTents. Really being forced to take the time to step back and reflect is what is necessary, and this point was re-enforced to me by a co-worker who talked my ear off a bit after hours. In the interim, we had a presentation with the take-aways from the FoodTents workshop last week which was, in a word, FANTASTIC. Great to get everyone in the room, on the same page, with the areas we need to improve. It was all very validating of what we basically already knew, and are already working on, but validation is important, and being data-driven is important, and also there were definitely a couple of very key non-obvious insights that were made, that are very useful. Exciting stuff.

Finally, we wrapped up the Purple Heart vending business, reconciled finances, and celebrated with both a chocolate mousse cake and milk tart. And Coke. And I had a Fruit & Nut bar. So that was more sugar in one dose than I had had in a long time, but it was fun. The next morning I brought the leftover milk tart to the morning meeting, and my one co-worker thought I was trying to bribe him. I wasn’t, but I think the milk tart didn’t hurt later on when I suggested that since we were out of toilet paper in the Hub, and this was a public space, we’d better sort it out. The little things matter.

The main activity for Friday was that we had a film crew from ANDE filming us and FoodTents, so after the morning presentation which was Craig from Ubuntu Bridge teaching us some Xhosa, we headed out on an extended field trip to Cheshire Homes (which is a home for the disabled) and then to Mama Rosie’s GrowZone. That was an interesting experience about which I have really only one comment: filming is a lot less glamorous than it sounds!

Visiting Herman at Cheshire Homes is always great. On this day we met his pet porcupine. I was, however, more interested to get to talk to Mama Rosie (and buy some of her bags!). I had never really had much of a chance to assess her business skills, so I asked her a bunch of questions about her existing businesses, how she planned to sell the produce, etc. I am now also wondering, and I need to ask one of our experts about this, about the role of gender when it comes to engaging with people from different backgrounds. As I think about it, we do need more women at heart anyway: pretty much all of our people who work on the ground are men. I also learned that one of Mama Rosie’s sons died in a shack fire last year, and now she lives in the rebuilt shack and feels unsafe. No wonder. And: damn.

So this hasn’t been the best week at the gym for me, just not even matching my PRs on back squat and press. Not sure why, after a rest week. Probably because of high stress levels, and also, to be honest, too much drinking. After weeks of not really drinking anything, going back to “normal” levels is actually unacceptable to my body. Guess I am learning my lesson, time to stop drinking during the week!

Now: off to the beach for a workout. In the most hectic southeaster I have encountered yet. That means it’s windy. Seriously windy.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Not quite

The rest of the weekend didn’t quite go according to plan!

First of all, the fish lady at the Biscuit Mill actually had a) fish and b) swordfish which is one of my favourite fishes (yes I know it’s both overfished and high in mercury so I eat it rarely). But I hadn’t had grilled swordfish in … longer than I can remember. So I bought it, and my goodness … probably about a pound for about $8. Beat that, Whole Foods!

Secondly, I went out to my co-worker’s place in Khayelitsha for what was basically a party, with the homebrewed African sorghum beer. Now let me tell you, that stuff is good! It’s a little bit sour and I could probably drink that stuff all day … but I didn’t because I had to drive, and because it was most definitely not on my diet!

What I was also not expecting was to get to go do some primary market research for one of our businesses halfway through the afternoon but that was cool too. I was completely unprepared but I suppose that’s half the fun … thinking on your feet! “What’s wrong with this house that you want to replace it?” “Would you be willing to live in a smaller house if it was higher quality?” “What does quality mean to you, anyway?” Oh and did I mention that our houses literally cannot catch on fire?

Fun stuff, though. It was great fun, though – my co-worker can really cook, and the beer was good, and I got to see some old friends again and make some new ones. Shame, though, it’s weird to go there because I am quite literally a freak. You can see the pictures of the guys taking pictures of me, there, in the township on their cameras. But I really like it because yes, it’s a bit different (ok a lot different!) culturally but a) you must get out of your comfort zone from time to time … and b) I love having conversations with people from very different backgrounds, especially when we start talking stereotypes. In a lot of ways I think it is much easier for me as a foreigner because I can both proclaim ignorance and yet also have an outsider’s somewhat unbiased view.

Ya so anyway afterwards I went to a braai in Gardens. That was great fun: we talked about the weightlifting competition some people had been to earlier in the day, and other cultish things. I also started going off about how excited I was to have done market research by accident. Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself in retrospect; I must sound so silly but I guess loving what you do beats the alternative. I was happy with the arrangement overall; I got to trade my swordfish for some other tasty things including melt-in-your-mouth t-bone.

Some people were going hiking Sunday morning but I decided to rest for Diane, sleep in, and get in some yoga, the better to prepare myself for the coming rest of the day and week. Of course, I encountered someone at yoga that I had to give some somewhat bad news to. Luck of the draw I suppose, but shame it’s always hard to be the bearer of reality. Ignorance may be bliss but full information helps you prepare better once the sting wears off.

Then, I picked up my friend and I had brought him A New Earth (and a potato from Masikhanye Food Garden) as a gift and when he saw I had it he said he had just seen it in a bookstore, after I had told him he should read it. So I asked if he had bought it, and he said no. I asked why not and he said he was resisting the idea that the universe was trying to tell him something. Well, guess what … he needs that book more than I do right now. This of course led to the interesting conversation of how the universe tells us a lot if we are open to it but it can also be quite scary the amount of data, but at the same time your human brain can’t quite handle it and you start to see meaning where meaning doesn’t exist. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I had really wanted to have lunch in Kalk Bay, and happily when I suggested the peninsula it worked out. I had forgotten about the work works though so we parked a bit out of town and walked in. Funny we were walking on the beach then the beach ended so we moved to the train tracks (why not, right?). It was only when I was about 2 inches over what was probably an extremely high-voltage live wire that we had a bit of a laugh about it. Oops. Well, the arrogance of “I’m not meant to die walking along a live train track in Kalk Bay.” “Nope, neither am I.” Then at lunch later we realised that the trains were actually moving quite quickly. Well, hey if it’s not a little bit dangerous it’s not South Africa. What was not so dangerous? Grilled Cajun calamari with some great Sauvignon Blanc. More dangerous? Talking about brain scans, trust, and jumping off of the proverbial cliff. Well, and stopping being such a fucking pussy. Talk about jumping off a proverbial cliff!

Geez, it is actually really awful because first of all to find someone so interesting to talk to is rare, and secondly someone who can give such pointed insight into me and what I am doing … more rare. Just my luck I suppose, some of the people I have become closest to in the last year or so have wound up either moving away or being from far away. But perhaps this is part of the appeal; familiarity breeds contempt. Funny, now that he’s gone back “home” I’m again regretting how selfish I’ve been, always talking, talking about myself and my issues. Well, there’s always next time. Dunno, I was in a very, VERY strange head space on this particular day for a huge number of reasons. Stuff going down at work, stuff going down a bit closer to home, a rest week combined with more drinking than I’ve been used to, Diane stress, lying to my friends, figuring out that one of my friends is trying to manipulate me (why and for what aim I haven’t figured out yet but two can play this game, because now that I’m wise to it, it’s a game, and if you’re reading this game on. Never mind that I’ve been two steps behind for ages now; when I apply my mind to something, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t get in my way).

Following this I went to my boss’ house quickly for a check-in, and some tea. I truly believe I’m in the right place at the right time, and that’s all that I have to say on this topic right now.

I didn’t stay more than maybe 2 hours because I had to go home and start to read the business case he had put together. How much fun is it, really, to read through someone else’s (yes, let’s face it, very impressive) work and find all the holes in it? Until your brain gets fried, that is!

Monday morning was the much-anticipated Diane Challenge finals. As you probably don’t remember , when I did this workout last I was not able to get anywhere near the full range of motion after like the first 10 or so handstand pushups. The last … large number … were maybe only half the proper range of motion. So, today’s workout I had been dreading because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. And, in actual fact, I didn’t quite make it all the way, I missed a couple reps where I was like 1-2cm shy and probably if left to my own devices I would have taken the 20+ minutes to repeat the reps but the coaches probably smartly didn’t let me do that. Next time, though I have absolutely no doubt. And this time was very, very close. Actually on the last round (the workout is 21-15-9 deadlifts and handstand pushups and actually the deadlifts were *way* easier this time around too!!) my hands kept slipping so I went to get some chalk and then cranked out three in a row (prior to that I had been doing singles and doubles).

So again, not quite. Not good enough for me, anyway, 95% is not 100%. Well anyway afterwards while waiting for the shower I went into a handstand and then practiced moving my feet out from the wall to balance and damned if I didn’t manage to get a freestanding handstand for a couple of seconds before I kind of freaked out and came down. Cool, though!

What was also cool was getting my bodyfat re-measured. Not sure if the two glasses of wine the day before at lunch helped or hurt but I came in at an unofficial 14% which exceeded my goal of 15%. Actually my new goal is 12%, we’ll see if I can get there in another two months, given that December is going to be a heavy drinking month and this period will involve a lengthy trip to the States where the food just makes me bloated for some reason!

One inspiring morning meeting aside, I got a bit into the guts of FoodTents but this was mainly a day when I did a whole bunch of little things rather than any big things. To make things worse I only got 13/21 items on my to-do list for the day done, so there is more to do! I did get a couple of bears off my list though; always a positive.

Monday evening was the Diane finals part at the gym, so I went to that. I am thinking this is turning into a bit of a pattern that I get some of the most meaningful work calls when I am at the gym. Good stuff, though, met some cool new people and I won fastest time (by virtue not of being fast, trust me, but because I was the only one doing advanced!). Well, there’s always next time, and next up: practicing negative handstand pushups!

Also, I really need a vacation. A do-nothing vacation. My brain needs it, and my ego (as in Eckhart Tolle ego) needs it. Soon, soon ….

Quotes from the last few days:
• “The future is not really our business.” – random guy at yoga [to someone else, that I overheard]
• “The universe is always talking to you, if you are paying attention.” – Ellie
• “What are you afraid of?” – Kevin
• “Just because a tiger is wounded, it’s still a tiger.” – Peter
• “Seeing the problem is half … no, wait, it’s actually way less than half the battle, huh?” – Ellie
• “Damn, I’m gonna die now.” – Ian
• “Even a dead tiger is still a tiger!” – Ian
• “Hectic!” – Phumzile
• “I don’t go around saying I can do things I can’t.” – Ellie
• “It’s like olive biltong!” – Amy