Fall cleaning!

It was 67 degrees and raining today (third day in a row of rain), which made it a perfect day to wash the airplane!

Although, I did hit culture shock when I asked a pilot on the airport "Where's the non-potable tap?"
"The what?"
"The non-potable tap? You know, for washing the airplane?"
I got a very funny look back. So I asked another pilot, who looked confused and aimed me at a third.

He grinned, and said "We don't have non-potable on the airport. It's all purified, off the city water." As my eyebrows started climbing to my hairline at the idea of wasting potable water on washing, his eyes were crinkling up in suppressed laughter. Fortunately, he continued on to outline where the airport had not one, but something like 6 taps around the hangars. "You're welcome to taxi over and use the hose outside my hangar - just wash the plane on the taxiway, so you keep the greasy belly dirt off my white apron!"

How do you wash an airplane with a hose? I'm not sure what to do with an abundance of water.  So I did it the way I know best. First, I rolled the airplane out into the rain to get wet. Then, I found the nearest tap, and filled the bucket three-quarters full, lugged it back, and added a good amount of aluminum-safe soap. Taking the nifty mop-like scrubber, dunk, and start at the top of the airplane, working my way down to the dirty belly.

Although, North Texas has such an abundance of dirt in the air, and I haven't flown the plane enough, so for the first time in my life the top of the wings were dirtier than the belly. That just ain't right.

When finished with the first pass, I emptied the very dirty water where we don't want plants growing anyway, then rinsed out the bucket, refilled it, and added just a little soap. Then I washed a second time, really cleaning now that most of the dirt had been removed and bird poop had time to soak.

I could have done a third pass with just water, but my arms were killing me. (The gym this morning was squats and overhead presses. Next time I wash the plane, maybe I'll do squats and deadlifts instead? Or be brilliant and wash her on a day I'm not already tired from the gym!)  So instead I called my father, and chatted with him about sacrificial anodes in water heaters and the newest high-tech paints which have ammonia that flashes off when applied, leaving behind an acid-based polymerization to create a film on the wall instead of ground pigment particles suspended in a drying medium, like... the entire history of paint before now.You know, standard daddy-daughter conversations.

After fourty minutes or so, we rang off, and I judged the airplane rinsed enough by mother nature, and pushed my dripping bird back in the hangar.

I guess there must be another way to use a lot of potable water and clean planes quickly. Maybe someday I'll acclimatize to the Lower 48 and think it's normal?

Poor prior planning makes for playgrounds

Yesterday was laundry day. It was also group dinner day, though thankfully by the time for friends to come over I looked almost presentable, and the house was close enough to clean for confirmed bachelors to be at home. (Even if Old NFO did have to dodge me passing him with two milk crates of freshly dried laundry before he even got something to drink.)

I left washing the mattress pad until after dinner, not wanting it spread out to dry over the chairs or couch while guests might want to sit there. This meant that I spread it to dry over the living room chairs shortly before bed.

...which means there was a fresh damp white mattress pad for the bored black kitten to amuse himself all night. And this morning, it looked every inch of it. *sigh*

In fact, as I write this, the kitten dashed up at tapped Kili on the hindquarters. She snarled, and disappeared under the chairs, behind the mattress pad, covering her retreat with fierce hiss and lightning paw. He's now sprawled on the floor on the other side of the hanging curtain of cloth, upside down and back legs splayed, batting under the edge of the formerly white pad at her.

A good day

Yesterday, I deadlifted 100 pounds.

On the other hand, when I tried to do a set of three overhead presses with 57 pounds, the third one inspired a spate of unladylike words as my right shoulder chose the moment the bar was almost - almost! - to the top of the rep to go extremely unstable. It hurt like blazes, too, on the way down. It didn't actually feel injured, just unstable and aggravated. Right pissed off, as a matter of fact. 

So I gave it five minutes to recover, and tried again. I got two rep, and one the third, the bar got to about ear height and I just ran out of gas. Picture a car halfway up an icy hill, wheels spinning madly as it slowly slides backward... that was my third rep.

Friday, I'll try again - but we'll back off to 50 pounds and concentrate on form, making sure it's perfect before we add weight back.

But you know what? I deadlifted 100 pounds. It was an awesome day.

Something Awesome For Your Day

Old warhorses can still haul, when they hear the call!


Commemorative Air Force Hurricane Harvey Relief Flights in the C-47 from The Commemorative Air Force on Vimeo.


https://vimeo.com/232135544

Bad Timing

Note to self: No matter what execrable pun or rotten limerick your Darling Husband says, do NOT laugh while you're trying to bench press more weight than you've ever done before. Because if you blow out your breath with a laugh, your chest collapses, lower back and shoulders destabilize, and the barbell will suddenly and very painfully go sideways on you. And then everything goes pear-shaped in a hurry.

In other notes, thank God for a good trainer who is spotting.

And my husband owes me SO MUCH chocolate. Ow.

...going to ban him from opening his mouth when I'm under a barbell...

Sage and blue cheese roasted squash

The original recipe is South African, calling for Gem Squash. I've only seen seeds for gem squash available once in 8 years of looking, and I lost the packet in moving - the squash itself, I've never seen in stores. (Note, this is not "gem" watermelons, which are not only much larger, but melons.)

But hey, you're roasting a small squash and then stuffing it with blue cheese and sage leaves that have been crisped in butter. Acorn squash is close enough!

Original recipe here: https://realmealrevolution.com/recipes/sage-and-blue-cheese-roasted-squash

American translation as follows:

3-4 acorn squash
1 wedge stilton (5-8 oz)
1 handful sage leaves (call it a cup. These are seriously tasty, so more is better!)
1 stick butter

First, get out the cleaver and carefully whack the acorn squash in half. Scoop out all the seeds, then flop two halves cut-down on a plate and microwave for 5-7 minutes, until the shells are shiny and the squash beneath is soft when you poke the shell. (Use something not your finger to poke it. It's hot!)

Flip the squash halves cut-side-up on a cookie tray. Divide blue cheese and crumble into each hollow.

Meanwhile, melt the stick of butter on medium heat in a frying pan. When melted, add the sage leaves. Let the dish bubble to itself for a while - about the time the butter is turning sage-green and the milk solids are starting to turn dark brown, the sage leaves will look less fresh and more fried. Remove from heat, and spoon the butter and leaves over each squash. Try to get all the cut parts coated in butter, so they won't dry out.

Stick cookie tray in oven, turn on broiler to low, broil 5 minutes or so until the cheese is bubbly, lightly browned, and sage leaves crispy but not burnt. (If doing 4 squash, just use two trays and rotate them out.)  

Serve with your main dish, and enjoy :-)

Starting Strength, the housewife review

Nothing makes me feel quite like a fat, tired, old hausfrau as looking at weightlifting & bodybuilding forums. For one thing, I can and do use correct spelling and grammar instead of "GAINZZZ!" For another, I fully recognize that it's taken me years to get into this shape, and it's going take time to get better - I'm not particularly concerned about my ABZZ, because I haven't seen them since I was 18, anyway.

Nor am I particularly impressed with the amount of noise I can make when dropping the weights, or the ability to motivate one's self or others through aggressive, crude posturing and mouthing off. (Really, boys. After you've heard Gunny Kowalski in a particularly vile mood while fixing his car, that's just infantile, unimaginitive, and repetitive.)

And I am not at all enamored of potions, lotions, pills, and powders that promise in highest pseudo-scientific commentary to deliver the same thing as Charles Atlas, without the work. I'm a woman of a certain age. Not only have I heard all that before with a slightly different spin from the cosmetic companies for decades, but I'm already taking enough potions, lotions, pills and powders that come with copays and scheduled checkups attached.

So, it may seem completely counter-intuitive that I started weightlifting with a Starting Strength coach - but it's actually been exactly what I needed, and delightfully free of  bushwa.

Starting Strength has a very simple, basic premise: you're there to get stronger, and you'll do that by lifting weights. They'll teach you how, and why, and what it does for you - as long as you put in the effort to do it.



And am I ever learning. When my darling man and I walked in to eyeball the gym and get a gut-feel for the people running it and coaching, they politely mandated we read the textbook before our first session (Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training), and then gave us a second textbook for supplemental reading (The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40).

My eighteen year old self would likely have shirked the reading, and made faces about textbooks outside of college. These days, I'm a little wiser... although, having never lifted before, a lot of the references in the manual were really hard going because I had no context. The first month has been full of "Ah, so that's what that means."

The coach was also most firm that we're going to perfect form before we add weight, a practice that I wholeheartedly agree with. (I've been in physical therapy enough times I know this drill; doing something wrong with lots of force = lots of pain and injury.) Enthusiasm without form leads to injury, and I don't have enough joint tissue left for that nonsense now.

And they deliver on results!. Now, being a rather broken and fat old woman who keeps a cane in the car for bad days, they didn't start me on weight right away - rather, I got to start with leg presses to build up enough strength to do squats. And Lat pulldowns to build enough strength for an overhead press. Even bench presses, I started with a 10-pound bar that was very clearly a 3/4" ID pipe cut to length, with stripes painted where the knurls are on real weightlifting bars. (I spent a few moments trying to remember if this was Schedule 40 or Schedule 80 pipe.)

But a month in, with three workouts of roughly half an hour each per week, I am now deadlifting 45 pounds, bench pressing 50, overhead pressing 35, and squatting 65 pounds.

The numbers on the exercises, though, are less important than the benchmarks in day to day life: I can once again put glasses away on the high cupboard shelf, and take down the pyrex jugs. My knees don't hurt as much all the time, and when I do things, they hurt less than they used to. I can now mow the front lawn and most of the back lawn, too, where before it was definitely one each per day. Oh, and my jeans are looser. Not dropping sizes yet, but it's a possibility in the future if this goes on!