“Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.”

Have you ever heard that wonderful factoid about how we can hold up to seven chunks of info, plus or minus two, in our short term memory at a time? Well I invite you to cast aside the order of the planets and commit something of greater practical importance to your memory.

The Moosewood Fudge Brownie recipe. 6 ingrdients, 6 steps, one bowl. Because if you keep some basic supplies on hand and have this recipe committed to memory, you can go from zero to brownies in 25 minutes.

Impulse brownie making is power. This is the itch and the scratch in one 9″ sqaure baking pan. So grease it and let’s begin.

Moosewood Fudge Brownies (adapted)
½ cup butter
2 large eggs
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
½ tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ cup cocoa powder (Moosewood calls for 3 squares of unsweetened chocolate to be melted with butter)
½ cup flour

Preheat oven to 350.
1. Butter your 8” or 9” square baking pan.
2. Melt you’re your butter.
3. While it is melting, beat eggs in a medium sized bowl.
4. Add the brown sugar, melted butter and vanilla.
5. Stir in the cocoa powder and flour until smooth.
6. Pour into your pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until done but still fudgey.

These brownies are straight-forward yum. Perhaps you have seen a brownie recipe that is more exotic or special, but this one is like husbands and pets – when you claim it as your own, you believe there is nothing finer on god’s green earth. At least as far as you can recall.

(The author with her game face on.)

After racing my first cyclocross race of the year this afternoon, I did a self-assessment. What went well? What could use some work? Bike handling, general fitness . . . Eh, not so shabby. Barriers . . . Oy, not so hot.

But there is an additional skill set that they won’t teach you in the school of cross. I need to work on my cheering and my game face. I believe that these are areas that can be developed, just like dismounts and remounts.

CHEERING
My cheering is too cheerful. I am the de facto Energy Coach of the Super Relax Concept, yelling things like “Go EVERYBODY!” And “Good effort out there! Don’t be afraid to share you feelings!”. Offering positive reinforcement during Austin’s race, I stood next to the legendary John Howe of Team Beer and got a lesson in how it is really done. He bellows “Suck it up! This is a race, people – you paid money for this!”

Tough love was what this course called for. It was clear that racers grinding up a slick bumpy muddy incline needed to tap into agression not self-acceptance. They needed a heckling that they could bite into when the pain hit, not the verbal equivalent of Tension Tamer tea.

Next time I will do better. If you too need a refresher course in transcendental ferociousness, I invite you to join me as I revisit my two inspirations in this field of study.

First, blues singer Susan Tedeschi. I heard one of her live albums in which she boomed and growled the blues and finished every set by chirping a sweet bright “thank you :)” Her voice embodies such emotional range that I hear my own voice as a flat monotone by comparison.

Secondly, racer/writer/homey Heidi Swift. She is equally inspiring, perhaps more fierce. If after watching this video, you need further explanation, you can see me after class:

Her battle cries will wipe any goofy smile off my face and f-ing BRING IT.

Both have lurking just beneath the surface a raw power that they can tap into to get a job done that simply can’t get done sweetly. Next week I will roar “Get up that hill Princess! This isn’t a beauty contest!” And it will mean “I appreciate you for who you are.”

GAME FACE
My game face lacks game. (See above.) This is a tough one. It is just how my face looks.

Besides practicing in the mirror every morning, the only thing that might fix my grin into a proper soul-crushing grimace is more cowbell. And a bit more time in the blast radius of the lovely Miss Heidi Swift.

Show and Tell PDX, May Edition – Sweetpea Bicycles from Substance on Vimeo.

When I was 18 or so, I had my mind blown by reading an article by Yvon Chouinard called The Next 100 Years, where he talked about building Patagonia to survive the next century and discussed the notion of buying stuff that lasts even if it cost more up front. Reading it I was confronted with the idea of a company that meant something, as well as the concept of real quality. I never bought stuff the same way again. Whenever I was faced with the prospect of buying one thing versus another, I would always advise myself to “buy it once” meaning – don’t spend money on something you are going to throw away or won’t last.

Many years later, I got good stuff that I still I don’t need.

The ‘buy it once’ mantra was good for deciding to add something, but didn’t help when it came to getting rid of things. So when I came across that sentence, “surround yourself with beautiful, excellent things and get rid of all else” I knew I might be onto a way of deftly dealing with the objects that come into my life. I was introduced to it on BoingBoing and then again on the Nau blog, but it came from something called the Last Viridian Note.  A couple of key passages:

“What is “sustainability?” Sustainable practices navigate successfully through time and space, while others crack up and vanish. So basically, the sustainable is about time — time and space. You need to re-think your relationship to material possessions in terms of things that occupy your time. The things that are physically closest to you. Time and space.

It’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.

The items that you use incessantly, the items you employ every day, the normal, boring goods that don’t seem luxurious or romantic: these are the critical ones. They are truly central. The everyday object is the monarch of all objects. It’s in your time most, it’s in your space most. It is “where it is at,” and it is “what is going on.”

It takes a while to get this through your head, because it’s the opposite of the legendry of shopping. However: the things that you use every day should be the best-designed things you can get. For instance, you cannot possibly spend too much money on a bed — (assuming you have a regular bed, which in point of fact I do not). You’re spending a third of your lifetime in a bed. Your bed might be sagging, ugly, groaning and infested with dust mites, because you are used to that situation and cannot see it. That calamity might escape your conscious notice. See it. Replace it.”

I think it was the Dalai Lama who said, “everything must go.” It is easier said than done. Holding on is something we do kind of naturally. But at least now I have the framework for subtraction and a case for keeping those beautiful things.

(Click above for the slideshow.)

Incidentally, this post marks the creation of a new category: HOMEWORK.  In the future, we will be posting about things we want to spend time thinking about, as well as things you need to think about if you are in line for a Sweetpea.