Spring!

Last Saturday after the last indoor Farmers Market (that we usually drive to) Mark and I took a walk and I got my annual pictures of hellebore. In someone else’s garden, I am not a gardener.

Friday, almost a week later, I took some pictures of somebody else’s daffodils.

The weather’s been pretty typically April, kind of cold and rainy, but some really pretty sunny times, too. And this past week we’ve been lucky that it’s been nice in the daytime, and rainy at night. I’ve been out for four bike rides, 2 on each bike, my old Giant and my newer Liv. Thursday I rode the Liv to the food pantry, so that was my longest ride so far.

Also Thursday I made some blueberry drop scones. It’s a recipe by Joanne Chang, founder of Flour Bakery in Boston, adapted by Dorie Greenspan for the NYT. Further adapted by me to have less butter and use frozen blueberries. I picked the recipe because it has more than half whole wheat flour, following my cardiologist guidelines, more fiber. Although I already eat over 30g of fiber almost everyday, or so my diet & exercise diary tells me.  And despite the whole wheat, Mark liked them.

In addition to the scones, I made at least one other dish that met my dietary guidelines, and Mark liked it, Rajma beans, Indian curried kidney beans in tomato sauce. I made them way back in pandemic with some fancy lima beans from Rancho Gordo, and I thought that batch was more delicious than this time with regular kidney beans. Tho the 2026 version was pretty delicious, no pics, and below is 2020. They looked very, very similar. I do still have a bag of the Christmas limas in the closet so I will make them, sometime soon. Even if it’s a dish Mark won’t eat, I will.

Speaking of cardiologist-approved, like I said, there really aren’t a whole lot of diet and exercise and lifestyle changes I can make to lower cholesterol. I’m already doing pretty much everything suggested. I already eat like 30g of fiber per day. I can make sure that as much of that is soluble as possible, that’s not a big deal. They also suggested I take Metamucil or other psyllium fiber, but I was doing that for a while a few years ago, this stuff, and it was too much fiber and I got constipated instead. I exercise, at least 30 mins. per day if I average over the whole week.

My main vice is full fat dairy products. I love 4% milk fat yogurt, but I only eat that maybe once or twice a week. I have been putting whole milk in my coffee, which by the way is 96% fat free, but I like my coffee milky, so if I have 2 cups of coffee it means I’m drinking 1/2 to 2/3 cup of whole milk every day. And that’s without going out for a latte, which is probably another 9-10 ounces of milk when I get a small. Although since they’ve been nagging me about blood pressure I tend to either drink coffee at home or go out, not both, in the interests of less caffeine. Anyways, I’ve switched to oat milk in my coffee at home, and if I treat myself to coffee out I get 2%.

And despite complaining about taking my blood pressure 2x per day, I’ve been doing it, mostly, as schedule permits, and I’m getting readings 30-40+ points lower than at the doctor’s office. Either the diuretic is working (I think it very much is) and/or I feel like I’m doing what they told me to do and it’s getting the results I predicted, rather than what the docs expected, so that’s relaxing.   

I am missing the first outdoor farmers market because I’m in Chicago to see Robyn Hitchcock.  The DCFM folks are posting pretty pictures though, and Mark went.

I got into Chicago late afternoon, and walked to the bus stop and got the North Avenue bus to John & Megan’s, saving my $$ for Ubers to the and from the show later. John & Megan went to Art Expo that was closing at 7:00, so had to leave before I did. I met my friend Nicole at a Thai place where we got dinner and then walked about 15 minutes to the concert. At the Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture.

It was a nice hall, good show, but I didn’t like the guitar player Robyn’s got with him this time, especially on some songs like Madonna of the Wasps. The original version on Queen Elvis has Peter Buck on guitar and, as Robyn says himself, he and Peter’s guitar styles are very complementary. Plus I’ve seen them perform Madonna of the Wasps live as Venus 3,  and listened to lots of recordings with Peter so that’s what I am used to. And like. This guy, Jeremy Fetzer, was mixed too loud, and his playing was too grating for my ears, and covered up the vocals and Robyn’s guitar. Some of the time. I liked the bass player, Todd Bolden, who stood of to the side in a trucker hat and was a powerhouse on See Emily Play, during the section of the show Robyn called songs by dead British guys, Sid Barrett and David Bowie and Kohn Lennon. I also liked the drummer, Eric Slick, who took Robyn’s ribbing about being cute and young looking good-naturedly and just played. I guess these musicians are the band on Robyn’s forthcoming album, the Confuser, so I expect the production will be skillful enough to blend Jeremy in better.

Here’re a few typically terrible concert photos and the video for I Am This Thing, the single off Confuser.

They closed with All Along the Watchtower, famously recorded by a dead American guy who got his start in Britain, though written by a living American, as Robyn said. The Robyn grabbed an acoustic guitar that’d been on the back of the stage (I was hoping Jeremy would play it and he’d be more quiet) and wandered out into the crowd and played Day in the Life, and we sang along. They kept the lights down so everybody stayed in their seats and he wouldn’t get rushed.

This morning, since John & Megan and I had no time to hang out the night before, we went to Flying Saucer for breakfast. I had the BST, bacon, spinach, and tomato, with vegan seitan bacon and mayonnaise. It was quite good, though I was a little iffy on the texture of seitan bacon – kinda rubbery. More cardiologist recommended food.