Dane Morgan

Meatless Monday is a new thing for us. Today was our second time participating. We are doing this as part of our bid to eat more healthy foods in more health proportions. We have no desire or intention to become vegan, or even vegetarian  but we have drastically cut back on the meat we consume and shifted what we do eat heavily toward chicken and fish, then pork and beef last.

Last week we decided to cut meat out on Mondays at least for a few weeks in a bid to trial an even lower meat ratio in our overall diets. The challenge will be to come up with a satisfying array of meals that can tame the meat lover in both of us and provide enough variety to sustain the practice long term.

Meatless Monday Hummus Pizza for Lunch

For lunch on our second Meatless Monday, we had a hummus , spinach, mushroom, pepper and mozzarella pizza on home made pizza wheat and flax crust.

This process started with making home made tahini by grinding sesame seed with olive oil.

The tahini was then added to chick peas , garlic, lime juice and salt then mashed into a paste. I did all of this by hand as I lack a food processor.

Then the hummus was spread out on the home made crust.

Next the veggies and cheese toppings went on.

Then it was baked for 25 minutes at 450 degrees

 Meatless Monday Falafel Patty Sandwiches for Supper

For super, I didn’t take any process photos, but we had falafel patty sandwiches with sauteed onions and green beans. i had my sandwich with spinach, tomato, Colby cheddar and a dollop of plain yogurt. It was an excellent combination of flavors.

We had had commercially produced hummus before  but I had never made any and neither of us had ever tasted falafel before, so it was a bit of a gamble, but it paid off in spades as we thoroughly enjoyed both of these, healthy, tasty Meatless Monday meals. I found the basis of my recipes, after a Google search, at  Mideast Food on About .

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She tells you to pick your feet up  and you try, but they are like lead weights hanging from the ends of your legs. They don’t hurt any more, but you just can’t feel them at all, and shuffling is so much safer than stumbling and falling.

You can’t begin to estimate how long you’ve been walking. The rests are supposed to be called every six hours, but you think it must have been at least twice as long as that already. The March Master seems to have been increasing the marching time and decreasing the resting time since the March began.

You look back over your shoulder in a long sullen glance and see that you aren’t the only one who is finding it difficult. A great could of dust hangs in the air marking the path of the Marchers in the sky. So many feet dragging across the desert sands, carving out the Valley of the March, deeper and deeper with each season.

“Watch where you’re going, ” she scolds.

You know the march is not easy on here either, but rebelliously, you recall that it wasn’t your idea to join the March. If you could choose, there is no way you would be here now. You would be resting easily in the great pool at home, sipping a cool drink and reading or listening to some music.

Anything would be better than this relentless plodding. Foot after merciless foot, surrounded by thousands of others. The stench of them all mingled together chokes you and flavors your meals. Time has frozen in place and the march has become an eternal torment with no hope of ending.

What should have lasted twelve days has already consumed the whole span of your life. You recall your home and our friends as though they were a mere dream now. You aren’t entirely certain they aren’t just a tortured figment of your wish for something that isn’t the March.

Maybe there isn’t anything else. maybe there is just the eternal walking with no beginning and no ending. Maybe you are nothing more than an eternity spanning Ouroboros of marchers with new marchers taking the place of the marchers who die and consuming them for the energy to continue.

All of this just to mate. It hardly seems worth it. Especially when the March has transformed her into … this. This harping, cranky perfectionist more concerned with how you appear to the poor sod dragging his feet next to you than with the sorry state of the feet you are dragging yourself. You can detect no hint of the enchanting being you agreed to mate with.

You’ve heard of other species who birth only one or two at the most young. You wonder how they can continue. Who would ever volunteer to march a second time? No sane creature would ever even consider it. Fortunately your brood would number fifty or more and you would never leave the great pool again, no matter how enchanting she might seem.

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I know I should have felt guilty and I’m fairly certain that there had been a time when I would have. I have a vague memory of feeling guilt. Something to do with a girl, I’m certain. Still I pushed the button and waited for the machine to respond.

The machine wouldn’t care about my guilt anyways, and the  girl didn’t seem to be a current concern if I couldn’t even recall her face. I’m not sure if it was always that way or not, but the machines seemed to erase a lot of the reasons for guilt. They probably also made it harder to feel it when there was a good reason. After all, it’s just a machine. The colony on the other side of it hasn’t been a factor for a long time.

The board determined my risk of being a vector was greater than 680 on the Taggert-Donovan scale and I was classified orange. The security team was polite, and possibly even a little sympathetic, but they were also completely unyielding. I hadn’t known before that they didn’t even tell the family of the vector until the threat had been ushered outside the colony.

Once we were outside, we were free to do what we liked. Vectors could just walk out of the structure and take their chances with the open sky and grandmother nature. Some would sit in a corner, shrivel up and die. Others didn’t want to wait to die, and there were plenty of ways out here to get that done. Most vectors took the work offer. I took the work offer.

As long as I was willing to perform specific maintenance tasks on the superstructure, the management would provide script that  could cash in at the machines for food and basic kit. nothing fancy like the chosen, inside the colony proper had, but enough to keep you alive and working until the fever hit.

Funny thing about vectoring though, is that not even a vector wants to be around other vectors. Sure, you’re a vector, but no one really thinks they will go hot on their own. So hanging around a bunch of other people who are all supposed to go hot doesn’t make sense. We keep to ourselves and stay pretty far away from each other. Any job that actually requires more than one person, the colony has to send out a team in protective gear, because vectors just won’t cooperate or work together.

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As the cloud of smoke blew back into her face she strained to hold her place. The temptation to move was almost overwhelming, and were it not for her extensive training would would certainly have bolted already.

“ten”

They said the GCCF Union tanks couldn’t be penetrated. The molecular diffusion armor, when charged, was the most advanced armor system devised in the whole scope of humanity’s sweeping experience with warfare. The GCCF had risen to power, not through superior tactics, strategy or access to resources. They were running the show precisely because no one could kill them.

“nine”

She would change that. She would teach the factions that the union was as mortal as they were. She would peel back the armor like a herring tin and the GCCF would be devoured in quick order. They could not stand against the combined forces of the factions without the armor. She held her breath as she watched for some sign that it had worked. She watched, she prayed and she counted.

“eight”

She was surprised that her thoughts could stray from the singularity of this moment, but the thoughts of her father weren’t really that far out of place. She hadn’t thought of him in quite some time, but it seemed appropriate, somehow, that he came to her now, in the moment when she put his very being to the test. She could never have developed the compression chamber of the penetrator without his work. She would never have had the drive to come test it without his sacrifice either.

“seven”

She thought she detected a slight variation in the charge field around the  vehicle she had hit and brought the field glasses to her eyes for a closer look. The shimmering patterns that played across the armors surface did seem to have a dark spot in them, but she didn’t think it was in the right spot for where the penetrator had struck. It should have been a little further aft. If she had hit it in the wrong spot, the whole exercise might be compromised.

“six”

The turret had swung around nearly to her position now, and every cell in her screamed one simple word in unison. “Run!” there was now way the camouflage would hide her from the advanced active field sensors in the GCCF vehicle. They would definitely see her like a bright shining flare if they pointed the array right at her. But if she ran, she would never know, and if she ran, they would see her even from the periphery. It was safer now to stay but, but mitochondria doesn’t understand such logic.

“five”

The sun was brighter now than it had been when she had fired the penetrator. Had it been just a few seconds ago? It seemed like weeks had passed as the lumbering hulk bore down on her position with a single minded intent to destroy the source of an attack it still did not believe could actually harm it in any way. That was part of the drive behind the factions. The completely over the top response the GCCF made to any perceived opposition. It was like hitting a child with a gigawatt laser for blowing bubbles at you.

“four”

There was definitely something happening now. The turret had stopped traversing and the vehicle had come to a stop. The dark spot seemed larger, though calling it a dark spot was probably overly generous. Less shimmery, maybe? She wasn’t sure she would ever get to write an after action report on this mission, but if she did, this was going to be hard to put on paper. maybe, just go ahead and call it a dark spot and let everyone else argue about the details. They were good at arguing about details.

“three”

They were still arguing about the details of this mission. She wasn’t, technically  authorized to deploy her device, because they were still arguing about the details. No doubt, by now, someone had noticed her feed and they were watching the video. Maybe they had even stopped arguing while they watched, but she wasn’t sure even this would give them pause. If it worked, though, that would have to change things.

“two”

The turret jerked back to life, traversing in the opposite direction, then ground to a halt with a shrieking sound. A purplish arc danced from fore to aft so briefly that she almost doubted her eyes, but the hud delay verified it. A distinct arc of energy flared out about three times the size of the vehicle itself, then collapsed back into the armor near the dark spot. She realized she had been holding her breath since she had lined up the shot and exhaled as she piped a multi-field sensor feed into the hud and the signal feed to read the real time analysis.

“one”

Glancing up from the data array, she saw the light field shimmer freeze in it’s pattern. That was unexpected and her mind panicked at the thought that the field had simply hardened into an even more impenetrable solid. Perhaps she was wrong and had miscalculated the nature of the energy field. Had she just improved their armor and secured their place as the tyrants of forever?

“zero”

Something was wrong. It hadn’t worked. The field should have shut down by now. It shouldn’t have frozen. How could that even happen? Energy didn’t freeze. What did that even mean. She had to get closer and get more data. She knew she would die now, but if she could get closer she could get better readings and maybe someone would be able to detect the flaw in the detonator and fix it, or develop another device that did work.

She stood, and realizing she still held the launcher, dropped it in the snow. She grabbed the data field array and ran at the vehicle. She had only taken six steps when the vehicle shattered. It didn’t explode. It simply shattered and fell to the ground in an incalculable number of shards. It certainly didn’t fit her expectations, but dead was dead.

She stood there for a some time, ignoring the incessant chiming of her comm and staring at the spot where the vehicle had been. When the first faction response team arrived, speeding to the remains of GCCF vehicle, she removed the photograph from her shoulder pocket, dropped it in the snow and started walking down to meet them.

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You watched the old man circle the car¹ in a slow methodical ritual that had not deviated in all the time you’d known him. While you waited, impatience growing, he stopped at each light and reflector to inspect them for cracks and wear. He took the precise measure of the air in each tire twice because, “one can never be too careful,” he had told you so many more times than you could remember.

As your impatience grew, he seemed to plod ever more slowly in his self-appointed rounds. He moved with the speed of a sloth and the grace of three-legged dog. But only, of course, if that dog were a pit bull. No other animal could match the stubborn single-mindedness of this old man.

“Come on old man,” you shouted from the driver’s seat as he caressed the tread of the right read tire. He was nearing the end of the ritual now, but that seemed to only make you more apprehensive of the time it was taking. he didn’t respond, or even acknowledge that he had heard you. You knew he had, and instantly regretted the harshness you sensed in your tone, but not enough to quell your rowing impatience with the ritual.

Most days you didn’t mind these couple of minutes, is that really all it was, a couple of minutes? It sure seemed like more right at that moment. It was as though your whole life had passed sitting in that seat waiting this one time while the old man completed his “quick check”.

He was fiddling with the gas cap now and you breathed an exasperated sigh. You weren’t sure he ever really checked that before. He might just be toying with you now. the old man had a habit of toying with you, and while you knew it was because he loved you and it was how he expressed the playful part of his nature, he never seemed to grasp just how exasperating it could be at times.

The old man simply had no sense of timing or decorum. He was capable of great wisdom. He knew things that you were often surprised that anyone knew, but he never seemed to know when the time was appropriate. It never helped that people seemed kindly disposed to him, and treated his transgressions in public as cute, or even funny. They just encouraged him to continue.

The seconds pounded away as you glared at your watch and tapped the face in a futile effort to get it to align itself with reality. The hands seemed to have moved but a bare fraction of the time you knew had elapses since your last exasperated glance.

Finally, he opened the passenger door and sat next to you in the seat. He adjusted the seat, pushing it first further back, and then, back forward a little, and then tried three or four positions with he reclining back, finally settling on a most uncomfortable looking straight upright position.

He checked his seat belt for proper function and travel before securing it across his lap and he called out in sing-song “Click it or ticket!” He held up the keys and reached across to you as you fastened your seat belt, smiling that goofy grin of his.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Dad,” you sighed, “Come on, let’s go!”

“Okay, turn the key on, and with your foot on the break, put it in reverse.”

1. This story prompt is from The 365-Day Writer’s Block Workbook (Volume 1)

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I held her hand as we entered the church¹. I felt the tremor in her fingers a block before we had arrived, but as we climbed the stately stone steps, the tremors graduated and became fully fledged spasms.

The sky, a piercing blue, offered no foreboding hint of what was about to happen, but her red-shot, purpled eyes screamed in my mind that everything was wrong.

The priest had a kind face, but it was troubled and his eyes were clouded with fear and grief and something else I couldn’t recognize at that age. His white halo of hair reminded me of the wisps of smoke above grandfathers farmhouse in the winter when the fire was roaring and the beans were boiling and his stole seemed a perfect match for the flames themselves.

As we approached him, she stopped and knelt bringing my face close to her own. The lines in her skin lied about her age, for she was a far younger woman than she seemed in that moment, but nothing could ever hide her pure, stark beauty from me. Not the cut on her forehead, not the frayed and torn collar of her coat, not even the time that would pass after this brief moment could do that.

She whispered hurriedly through her tears that she loved me and that she would be back soon. She promised that until she returned, her brother would make sure I was safe and cared for. These were lies, but I don’t think she could have thought of any way to get through it without those lies.

The priest was her brother, but he couldn’t take care of his own sister or even of himself and he would be dead inside a week anyways. And she would never return after that day.

As she limped, beaten and lonely, back out the sanctuary door, I broke from my uncles ineffectual grasp and raced time to the door. I emerged into the bright harsh light to see three men in expensive suits and black overcoats getting into a car where she sat hunched forward with her head in her hands.

I never saw my mother again after that car pulled away, but I would see each of these men again and I would preside over their deaths as they exited their worlds with as little understanding as I had entered mine.

I didn’t know any of this then though, and I was only a young boy. I tripped as I chased the car and I stayed on the ground crying out my fear and frustration. I didn’t yet have the tools or the knowledge to do more with them, but I would.

I would very soon begin to learn the darkest secrets the world has to offer, and I would learn to use those secrets to destroy anything that dared to oppose me.

1. This story prompt is from The 365-Day Writer’s Block Workbook (Volume 1)

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this is another test post

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Weight loss failure

.
Well, I’ve now gained back 20 of he pounds I so painstakingly lost. I’m back up to 297 lbs. from my low of 270 lbs.

Weight Loss Problem Statement

The factors are involved in this problem statement as I see it are:

1. MyFitnessPal was a pain in the ass. While monitoring and maintaining a food and exercise journal are, in my personal experience, critical to the process, keeping it going with MFP was a hassle and I was always putting it off, then having to doit all at once at the end of the day from a running calculation my ADHD soaked brain tried desperately to maintain. Ultimately, I quit journaling my meals well over two months ago.
2. I accepted my ‘it’s cold and dark out there’ mamby pamby excuse to stop walking a minimum 2 miles a day. This is especially disheartening because I had been doing so well, and mentally I know what the benefits are. I had quit using my CPAP, I could hike and walk and play with my kids and not lose my breath thirty seconds in. I know this is all a direct result of the activity and I know I will lose it if I stop being active at that level.
3. No one, including me, told me what a moron I was being. I need to be reminded, from time to time, just how stunningly stupid I can be. I think I’m so clever, and then I talk myself into slacking off on things because i can pick up the slack, but the fact is that I can’t and I’m old enough and smart enough that I should know better.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

Fat Loss Failure Consequences

I will not get to do the things I want to do with my life if I allow myself to slip, slowly into the same state of disrepair I allowed over the past two decades. I will not see my kids graduate and marry. I won’t hike cool trails. I will fucking die early and it will be a sad fucking waste.

Renewed Fitness Plan Commitment

I have located a new app that I think will eliminate some of the journaling resistance and I will be logging my meals and exercise on it the way I did with MFP. I will also be posting my numbers here on this blog. I will hope that some among my friends, should they notice that I haven’t logged my numbers in some short period of time will give me the swift kicking in the ass that that deserves.

I will also return to daily exercising. If it’s sleeting and ice storming outside or sub zero temperature, I will load up some crazy exercise program with a festive name on YouTube and do the most sweating I can in the living room. If it ain’t sleeting, literally freezing or raining fireballs and alligators, I will get my fat ass outside and move it a minimum of two miles every day without fail.

Finally, I am asking for your help. If you are one of those who share a relationship with me, you have my permission to flat out hound me. I am begging yo to nag me. Call me names, make me miserable. If you don’t seem me journaling and working on this, please make sure that the pain of not getting going is far worse than just doing it for me. Be relentless and merciless.

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This is my End of the World Cache , a video response to the End of the World Geocoin Contest .

My cache choice would be the Proffit Mountan Cache, which is actually above Proffit Mountain, on Taum Sauk Mountain, overlooking the Taum Sauk Reservoir.

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More and more often it seem that, at my age, recharging involve assuming a vertical orientation and shuttering the lids.

Recharging With A Nature Fix in the Geek Woods

One activity that gives me a boost for a while after I do it is Geocaching. I get outdoors and I get to exercise the mind and the body and still play with electronics. Win, win, win. It helps that it’s a great family activity I can do with my wife and kids as well.

This is response to the Refresh prompt at One-Minute writer.

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