Category: Photography

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When I was 2 years old, I was in the hospital twice with digestive issues, and came out with a diagnosis of celiac.

This was in the very early 1960s, when nobody knew diddly squat about celiac, and there were no gluten-free baked goods, and no indications on labels or menus that all kinds of ordinary things in restaurants and grocery stores had gluten in some form or another. My mom did the best she could to avoid giving me things with gluten in them, and taught me to explain to people who were trying to feed me that I couldn’t eat wheat, oats, rye, or barley.

I think nowadays people think that oats don’t have gluten, but we didn’t know that then, so we did our best to avoid all of them.

I ate this half-assed gluten-free diet until 1976, when went away for 6 weeks to a National Science Foundation summer program. I was living in a college dorm and eating in a college cafeteria, and found it too difficult to follow my diet. I found that my digestion was about the same as before, and just quit worrying about staying gluten-free. (Until I got married, and my wife thought that, if I had celiac, perhaps I should avoid gluten. And it was much easier in the 1990s to find gluten-free food.)

Fast-forward another decade or so. Blood tests for the antibodies to gluten became available. I got those tests done, and discovered that I’d never had celiac.

So, one thing I like to do these days is hark back to having to avoid “wheat, oats, rye, or barley,” and subvert it, by baking bread that contains wheat, oats, rye and barley.

Which I did today:

A loaf of freshly baked bread on a cooling rack

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In the years that I was particularly suffering from season depression in the winter months, I found various things that helped. (Click the SAD tag to see various posts on the topic.) One thing that was kind of in the middle in terms of both value and effort was taking myself on an Artist Date. (There’s an Artist Date tag as well.)

Lots of different things can quality as an Artist Date, of course, but I usually used the term to refer to going to someplace (anyplace) that I found inspired me. At the top of the list, because there’s already art, which helps me get into the right frame of mind, is to go to an art museum or an art gallery. But almost as high is going to a natural area, or some place like the Japanese Garden at Japan House.

I haven’t been particularly depressed this winter, but the Krannert Art Museum had an exhibit of textile art that Jackie wanted to see, so we decided to make an artist date of it. On a whim, we added the Conservatory, which has a greenhouse with a bunch of tropical flowers, and is always nice to visit in the winter, because it’s warm and sunny. (Sunniness, of course, depends on the sun being out.)

Jackie photographing a flower just outside the Conservatory green house

It’s hard to get a good picture of the art museum, except by just taking pictures of individual works of art, which I don’t like to do (out of courtesy and for copyright reasons), but I thought this one was valid:

Numerous paintings covering a wall of the museum

There was a term (that I have already forgotten) for having numerous paintings covering the wall, rather than a spaced array of individual paintings.

And this one was produced as part of the WPA’s Federal Arts Project, by artists who were paid a modest wage to make art that belonged to the government (and all such work is copyright-free):

A painting of a worker

As I said, I wasn’t really depressed, so it didn’t so much matter that the Conservatory greenhouse gave of a clear view of the complete lack of sun:

Interior of the Conservatory greenhouse on a gloomy day

Still, I’m feeling just a little inspired.

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Ten years ago, instead of taking Jackie out to a restaurant and sitting with a bunch of other couples wanting to overpay to order off a “special” Valentine’s Day menu, I decided it would be more fun to cook her my own little feast.

As my inspiration, I reached back to October, 1991, and the very first meal I ever cooked for her. (She was threatening to go home because she was tired, and I said, “No! Stay here! I’ll fix dinner! You can just take a nap and I’ll do everything!”)

In the foreground is a plate with a rock cornish game hen, rice, and roasted potatoes, with a woman sitting across the table with the same meal served

Some of the details have varied (the flourless chocolate cake was new maybe 4 years ago), but rock cornish game hens and long-grain and wild rice have always been there.

In the foreground a serving of flourless chocolate cake and across the table a woman with the same dish.

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Just a smidgen longer than my previous long run, but this time I added some intervals along about the midpoint, where I ran hard for one minute, and then spent two minutes recovering, and repeated for a total of 5 times. Probably not the smartest choice (embedding that in a long run), but I enjoyed it anyway.

My fitbit says I did 4.75 miles in 1:13:26.

Just a spot where you can choose which part of the footpath to follow