Digital Manticore

A Week in the Life: Peru Trip Edition

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Lindsey

I’ve been writing this post off and on for the last couple days as I recover and try to organize my thoughts. This trip was good but it was deeply exhausting. The tomfoolery began before we even left Sacramento: when we arrived at the airport we were informed that American Airlines had changed their flight schedule and our flight would not arrive in LAX early enough to make our plane to Lima. The airline had not bothered to inform anyone of this change and we retreated to start again the next day.

However, the good stuff of the trip was really good. It was wonderful to visit our friend Anne in Cuzco and I loved seeing Machu Picchu and trying new things. I think one of the nice things about travel is it can remind you of what you like about being at home, too. I thrive on routine but too much routine can make you restless. After this trip, I’m glad to be home and back to doing things like planning out what to cook this week and when to go to the gym.

Lima

We had planned for about two days of sightseeing in Lima, but thanks to the airline fuckery we were only really had one. We did get to see some cool things like John F. Kennedy park, which is full of cats. Kirk said he knew that’s what I wanted to do most so we made that our first stop. See the world, pet the cats there.

me booping the nose of a black cat — cats I have pet: Part 1

After stopping at the cat park, we mostly walked around the Miraflores neighborhood, which is the main touristy area where we stayed. We spent a while walking up the Malecón, which is a big pedestrian walkway that overlooks the ocean. Just for kicks, we walked up to a fancy mall called Larcomar, which was pretty much like every other fancy mall that you would find anywhere. It’s so weird, yet boring, how capitalism replicates itself all over the place.

View of the Malecón in Lima, a shot of the coast from up high — The Malecón on a blustery day

Kirk and I with the beach in the background — The Malecón on a blustery day

Cuzco

After Lima, we spent five days in Cuzco. Cuzco is a really cool city. It’s situated in a steep valley and the neighborhoods seem arranged vertically. What we liked the most is that there is a mix of old and new throughout the city, which is what makes it unique. You can see the colonialism overlaid on the old Incan architecture, but a lot of that has been reclaimed again—lots of buildings are converted monasteries, like the hotel we stayed in and some of the museums we visited. Things come back around. We had a few good vantage points for city photos, including Anne’s apartment in the San Blas neighborhood and the view from Christo Blanco, which is a giant statue of Jesus up on a hill.

a view from San Blas at another angle — the view from san blas: Part 1

me holding a baby goat and standing with three indigenous women — tourist hustle

I decided to embrace being a tourist. I know a lot of people like to blend in or otherwise act cool when traveling, but, especially somewhere like Cuzco, there is no blending in for a large white person like me. Plus, I am a tourist. I am there being confused and impressed by things the locals see every day. I did my best not to get hustled but did fail a few times. On a walk to the Plaza de Armas, some women leapt into my path and shoved a baby goat in my arms, which is something I’m really not going to turn down. I got Kirk to take a photo and then started talking to the women because I knew they would want a tip for this experience. They tried to charge me 10 soles per person in the photo and I had to laugh. I gave them 10 soles total and walked on. And now I have this ridiculous photo of me holding a goat. Not pictured: the first goat they handed me would not stop kicking me until they took him back. Docile goat photos only.

Chocolate Workshop

One of our first tourist activities was to take a chocolate-making workshop at Choco Museo. This was a lot of fun and I actually learned a lot about how chocolate gets made. We roasted and ground up cocoa beans, tempered and molded chocolate, plus did silly activities like compete for who can make the best llama out of a pile of cocoa beans …. we did not win. When we started the class, I assumed I’d be shepherding my beans from pod to bar (to be fair, it is advertised as a “bean to bar” workshop), but cocoa beans take weeks to dry and process into chocolately goodness. I didn’t realize just how long it takes to turn cocoa into chocolate. Still, we got to mold our own chocolate and mix in flavors and ingredients like Peru’s ubiquitous ají chili, coconut, or M&Ms. The results were delicious.

Anne and I looking adorable in aprons and chef hats — reunited and ready for chocolate

a cocoa bean pod — reunited and ready for chocolate

Culture

a scene from a folk dance with men and women in indigenous outfits — whirling and twirling

We took in a little cultural enrichment too, starting with a folk dance performance at the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo. I mostly enjoy folk dance for the whirling and twirling of costumes. Folk dances seem to always have these strong codifications of gender roles, which is kind of weird to watch. But I guess that’s culture for you?

We visited a few museums too. My favorite was the Textile Museum because, particularly since I learned to knit, I’ve developed a major appreciation for the effort and artistry that goes into making things. This museum also sells the yarn that women there make, and I bought several balls of alpaca yarn that I’m looking forward to knitting into a sweater.

indigenous women weaving at the textile museum — weaving away

La Mal de Altura

Altitude sickness, or “soroche” as its colloquially known in Peru, is pretty serious shit when you’re at 3,400 meters (11,155 feet). I knew it would be hard to breathe in Cuzco but I completely underestimated how bad that would feel. I got a prescription for altitude medication from my doctor before the trip and decided I would wait to take it and see how things felt when we arrived. I got a headache more or less immediately when we arrived on Sunday afternoon, so I took the altitude medication before bed after concluding that there was no prize for toughing things out.

I kept taking the medication on Monday, but by Tuesday, I was not feeling very good. We had planned to hike up a few miles to Christo Blanco, but Anne suggested we take a taxi up and walk back down, which seemed like a great alternative. As we were walking around that morning, I was feeling pretty shitty, physically and mentally. It was hard to feel like I could barely do anything when I know I have made a lot of progress athletically and I am strong and capable. We tried doing a low-key hike to a small archaeological site called the Templo de la Luna. I had to stop every 15 to 20 feet to spend five minutes catching my breath. Afterwards, we took an afternoon rest at the hotel and I took a nap but was still faring just as badly as before, so Kirk started researching the medication I was taking and what I should do. I emailed my doctor who said I probably had altitude sickness and that I needed to go to a doctor in Peru immediately so things wouldn’t get worse.

I asked the front desk at our hotel if they had a recommendation for a clinic we could visit. Altitude sickness is pretty common among tourists and they were prepared. They called the local clinic and a doctor actually came to the hotel to assess me. My resting heart rate was 111 and my blood oxygen saturation was at 86 percent (I have since learned that a normal range is around 92 to 96 percent). The doctor said we’d need to go to the hospital for me to get some oxygen. What this meant in practice was taking an ambulance to a hospital that seemed specifically designed for de-oxygenated tourists and spending the whole afternoon and evening there trying to get my oxygen levels back up.

As an American, my first question was: what does this cost? It turns out that an ambulance trip, a six-hour hospital stay, a lung x-ray, hours of oxygen, and a handful of prescriptions will only run you about 850 soles, or 275 dollars, which I found shockingly inexpensive. There’s room here for some political commentary, but I suppose I’ll leave all that for another post.

I spent the last few days in Cuzco moving slowly and trying to avoid any extra exertion like walking uphill. Luckily, I’m a rich white woman and can afford to take taxis everywhere if that’s what I want. Plus, the day after the hospital trip, we had plans for Machu Picchu, which is at a lower elevation (around 8,500 feet) than the city so that made life mildly easier.

me, breathing oxygen through a special tube — oxygen time

a shot of the window from my hospital room, clear skies and about 4 stories up — oxygen time

Dogs of Cuzco

On a lighter note, the city of Cuzco is absolutely teeming with dogs. I took pictures of a lot of dogs because I like cute animals. One dog, which Anne has been calling Lady, even hiked with us, despite my excruciatingly slow pace. She would run up the hill then come back down to be pet whenever we took a rest. It was adorable.

a dog lying in the dirt — our hiking guide

a hairless dog roaming the streets — our hiking guide

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu was of course on our itinerary. We took a train on PeruRail called the VistaDome, which has big windows on the sides and roof of the train so you can watch the landscape go by. It takes about three hours to reach Machu Picchu even though it’s only about a 60-mile trip. The train winds through the Andean countryside, which I found peaceful. Plus it was a nice break after having just recovered from altitude sickness.

When you arrive in the town of Machu Picchu, you still have to travel to the site itself. We were informed that you can take a bus (about a 30 minute wind up the mountainside) or walk. We chose the bus.

Machu Picchu is as impressive in person as you would expect it to be. My only complaint is there is not a lot of information there about the site. I expected more plaques or perhaps a map on entry so I would know what I was looking at. For example, one large rock was labelled simply “sacred rock,” which I do not find especially informative. There were tour guides for hire, but I don’t really like to be hampered by a guide; I want to move at my own pace (that day’s pace: slow). Even without knowing all the details, Machu Picchu is amazing. Plus, I was able to pet no fewer than four llamas, so I had a good day.

view of the "town" in Machu Picchu — the road from the town of Machu Picchu to the site

Kirk and I in front of Machu Picchu — the road from the town of Machu Picchu to the site

I was excited to spend a few minutes at Machu Picchu knitting. I know that might seem a little weird, but it’s my own quasi-spiritual experience. Women through the ages have knitted and prepared textiles in places like these and I wanted to commune with the matriarchy in some kind of way. Most of history is about men, but given the heritage of textile art we see in the Andes, we know women were there making amazing stuff. So, this is my small tribute to their efforts.

Food

Peru is known for having amazing food and I can confirm that this is true. I can be a bit of a finicky eater (a lot of things disagree with me), but I was able to eat a lot of tasty food in Peru, even though I can’t eat quinoa or fish without getting sick. We tried a lot of regional dishes like ají gallina (chicken in a yellow chili sauce), adobo (a pork chop soup said to cure hangovers), lomo saltado (a meat and vegetable dish), pollo a la brasa (roasted chicken), plus desserts and many other tasty foods. Even the food I had at the hospital was pretty decent. It’s possible that we got a better-than-average sample of good food in Cuzco since we had Anne guiding us to all her favorite spots. Still, I’m sold on Peruvian food overall.

I noticed a couple of food trends. One was that you can get pollo a la brasa everywhere. There are chicken restaurants all over the place where you order chicken by the quarter, half, or whole and it comes with a pile of french fries. We even tried a grocery store version of this in a moment of fatigue and desperation when I was hungry and too tired too walk anywhere (this being hours before the hospital trip). The other trend is a drink called chicha, which is fermented purple corn. Peruvians use it in a spiced drink called chicha morada (purple chicha), and it’s actually pretty good. We also had a pudding-like dessert made of chicha (pictured below). It’s nice to encounter uses of corn that aren’t the high fructose kind.

The main spice that runs through a lot of Peruvian cuisine is the ají chili. It’s not something I’ve noticed here at home, and being the sort of person I am, I spent our trip keeping an eye out for ají to buy and bring home. I found some ají sauce at the grocery store and then, luckily, on our last day as we were browsing the San Pedro market, I found people selling packets of dried ají. I also bought a cookbook of Peruvian recipes so I am looking forward to having a go at some Peruvian dishes once I’m settled in again.

a plate of roast chicken and french fries — pollo a la brasa

a table with pizzas and plates — pollo a la brasa

It was a good trip but I am glad to be home and breathing air with more oxygen in it. Plus, home is where my cats are.

Huey the cat, sitting on my chest — Huey is displeased with my insolence

Viola the cat, curled up and asleep on a pillow — Huey is displeased with my insolence

weekly update

A Week in the Life: November 1, 2019

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Lindsey

Happy Halloween! I acknowledge Halloween is technically over, but it’s still close enough. It has been extra spooky here and for all the wrong reasons. A cold hit me last Friday and I was sick all weekend, which was not great, but I’d rather be sick before vacation than during, so I accept it. The noise our fridge was making escalated, so we declared food bankruptcy, cleaned it out, and turned it off for two days. We had thought something needed to defrost, but it seems the culprit was the water pipe vibrating noisily against the back of the fridge. I’m glad it’s fine and not expensive to fix, but damn if that isn’t annoying. Finally, the big news: our shower is done! The contractors finished on Tuesday. When I took a shower on Tuesday night, the water couldn’t drain fast enough to keep up with the flow. When we turned the shower off, water kept trickling out. We stopped it (and by “stopped” I mean, brought it down to a slow drip) by turning off water to the whole house. Fortunately, we got them to come fix it the next day. It wasn’t draining because the amateur who laid the floor neglected to cut a hole for the drain in a sheet of paper. The faucet wouldn’t stop because of some tiny wire. To which I say: what the hell. Everything is fine now and I hope our house drama is ended because my blood pressure can’t take much more.

shower with glass door, large grey tiles, and black "pebble" floor — the new shower. finally

We are getting ready for our Peru trip! We leave next Thursday so I may not write next week unless I’m feeling extra motivated and blog a day early. When we return, I’ll write a special Peru Trip Edition of the weekly update, hopefully with lots of great photos!

This week was stressful and most of my time was spent being fucking stressed. So the blog this week doesn’t exactly follow my normal sections.

Reading

book cover of "Archaeology from Space" by Sarah Parcak — Archaeology from Space

I finished reading Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past by Sarah Parcak. This book talks about the field of space archeology, which is not doing archaeology in space but using satellite imaging to identify sites and looting in remote areas. Parcak is an Egyptologist, which of course got my attention because that was one of my early career objectives (no, really. I took a year’s worth of hieroglyphics courses as a college freshman), but also because her style is highly accessible for a subject that is unfamiliar for most. What was really cool about this to me is Parcak’s description of her archaeology crowdsourcing project, GlobalXplorer. Anyone can join GlobalXplorer and help identify sites that have potentially been looted. The site gives you a short training on what looting normally looks like, and the user looks at images and says, yes this looks like looting or no looting here. If an image receives a certain number of positive responses, an expert reviews it. GlobalXplorer is now only working to identify sites in Peru and they have found a number of looted areas plus some new archaeological sites because regular, non-experts were able to help. So cool!

Food

I basically only made bread this week because it doesn’t require much in the way of refrigeration. For Halloween I made a “bread-o-lantern,” a round loaf scored with a jack-o-lantern face because that’s how I …. roll (lol bread jokes). I tried a rye loaf for the first time over the weekend. I told Kirk I would make a bread for his dad’s birthday and started out by trying the golden semolina “torpedo” from The Bread Bible. About halfway through I realized I may have used true semolina flour instead of the durum wheat (also called semolina) the recipe called for. Kirk told me his dad would really love a rye bread anyway so I decided to try it. The results were very tasty and I’m probably going it add it to my regular repertoire. Maybe I’ll even improve my bread scoring art (thanks for the inspiration, Great British Baking Show).

Aside from bread, I had a bizarre hankering for wedge salad so we made some of that too. Although I have eaten wedge salad, I had never before made it—not that much skill is required. I think I was craving low-effort vegetables after the fridge clean-out efforts.

bread-o-lantern
rye: round one
the somewhat unimpressive semolina “torpedo”
I am still surprised to be someone who purposely makes and eats salad

Knitting and Crafts

me wearing a knitted hood that is covering half my face — hooded caplet three: progress

I am making progress on the third (and final?) hooded caplet. I’m hoping to finish it before we leave on our trip, mostly because I want something a little smaller for plane knitting. I like how the yarn is coming together. I couldn’t picture it when I bought the yarn, but now that I’ve got it going, it looks really cool.

Finally, here are some cats for your nerves. I let the cats back into the master bathroom for the first time in weeks after thoroughly cleaning it and Huey seemed very happy to be reunited.

I guess Huey missed the toilet
Huey looks down on us all
almost friends

weekly update

A Week in the Life: October 25, 2019

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Lindsey

my newly remodeled shower. grey tiles with black "pebble" floor — shower: so close

I was really hoping that today my shower would be finished today and I could clean my house and get back to using my master bathroom. Yet, here we are. I am happy to report that it’s almost finished. That’s great but the tantalizing nearness of it all is almost more annoying. My shower actually looks amazing but the organization and lack of communication from this contractor has been maddening. All that’s left is to install the door and the fixtures. They started the tiling on Monday, finished on Tuesday, and applied the grout on Wednesday. I haven’t gotten any updates from them since, which is annoying the heck out of me.

Other than the ongoing shower drama, I’ve had a full week (as ever).

Consuming

Here are some things I read and bought this week.

Reading

It seems I bookmarked quite a few articles to share this week, but before that I will also share that I finished reading New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color. It’s a great anthology of short fiction written by, obviously, people of color. There’s no uniting theme, just a bunch of fine stories. Recommended reading if you like short fiction.

The Cost of Leaving an Abusive Relationship via the California Sunday Magazine. As I said last week, men are fucking jackals. This article is about two women trying to leave abusive relationships and the cost of doing so.
Time to Put Trump in the Same League as Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby via Medium. Why aren’t we treating Trump the same way as we are other predatory men? How many women does it take?
Chile is the latest Latin American country to erupt in violent protest. Here’s why. via the Washington Post. I spent a little time reading up on the situation in Chile this week after hearing about a Chilean roller derby player being shot by the police there. It’s truly brutal.
Millennials have dinner parties, they just don’t call them that via Vox. Maybe Millennials killed dinner parties but maybe we just reinvented them and made them enjoyable?? Did you ever think about that? This describes my generation getting together for dinner and hanging with friends but not under the stodgy guise of the dinner party. This made me think of our cookbook club and how it’s super informal and just a way to hang out and eat with friends.
California city returns island taken from native tribes in 1860 massacre via The Guardian. This is something really cool. The city of Eureka returned an island to the Wiyot tribe. It can be done.
#RitasQuilt via Twitter. Okay this is a twitter thread, not an article, but it’s really cool and I want to share it. The original poster found squares for a huge, hand-embroidered quilt at an estate sale and now has people all over the country helping finish it. Sometimes the internet is great.

Rampant Consumerism

2020 is yet two months away but I already have dates set that need to be accounted for, so I bought my 2020 day planner. I couldn’t find any planners I liked with cool designs so I compromised and bought a planner and some stickers from Hand Over Your Fairy Cakes. My October chocolate subscription arrived from Raaka chocolate and, of course, it has been tasty. I was a little wary of the smudged sage and palo santo flavors, but the chocolate doesn’t really taste like sage or sticks (holy or otherwise). It was an interesting flavor, although nothing is going to top how good that tahini swirl chocolate bar was.

On Saturday I hit up my local yarn store, Knitique, in search of both yarn and needles. I got some cool, colorful yarn for my next knit and I also bought a neat little set of needles for knitting socks. I was looking for an odd size (1.5 for those in the know) and was directed to a set of mini needles (video review here). I haven’t tried them yet but they seem really handy because you can knit a sock in the round. I also love sets of things, so you can’t go wrong.

2020 is sooner than you think
October chocolate subscription
ready to knit

Making Things and Doing Stuff

Here are some things I did or made this week.

Derby Life

me with my back facing the mirror. photo shows top of my head and behind to get the view of the braids — braiding success

I played my penultimate game of the season on Sunday with Kodiak Attack, our C team. We played in Roseville against the Outlaws and, against all odds, won with a roster of just 10 skaters (normally you can have up to 15 skaters play for a team during a game). It was a lot of fun and I got to hear my derby wife Boss Taco and friend Bob Uckerlele announce the game. It was also a feat of endurance because we had few dedicated blockers on our roster, so I was on the track for almost 70 percent of the game. I didn’t get an MVP award this time, but a lot of people gave me very positive feedback, and I know I did a good job, so I can’t really be disappointed about it. I’m looking forward to the photos!

My hair is getting a little longer and I have been looking for ways to keep it out of the way and not have a goofy tuft of it sticking out under my helmet so I tried french braiding for the first time. It worked pretty well but I did lose a hair tie, somehow, mid game. I’m hoping once my hair gets longer it will be easier to keep in place, and that I’ll get better at braiding it.

I also got to coach again this week. Our newest skaters tried out for the league and I showed up to help evaluate. We had a lot of coaches turn up so I only had to make notes for two skaters, which was really nice because I had enough time and attention to write considered feedback. One of the skaters told me, after I coached Wednesday practice, that she was glad I had come and that my presence helped her feel calm. I take this as a very high compliment!

Knitting and Crafts

I finished the pumpkin hat for my honorary niece Ronni after a wild Friday night of knitting last week. This was fun because I revisited the pattern we used in the learn-to-knit class I took a couple years ago. I was able to knock this hat out really fast! Amazing what practice will do for you. I’ve since started on the next (perhaps last) of the hooded caplets using yarn I bought last weekend. I’m hoping I can finish that before I head to Peru then pack something reasonably straightforward to knit on the plane.

all hail the pumpkin hat
fashion

Kitchen Witchery

We’ve been trying to clean out our freezer the last couple of weeks because the fridge, which, for the record, is barely two years old, has been making a strange vibrating noise. Internet research suggested that it could be a problem of ice on the fan and the solution for that is to unplug the fridge and let it thaw. To that end, we’ve been trying to eat up what’s in the freezer and (more difficult in my view) not add new things in. I usually cook with a mind to freeze a few things for later, but lately I’m trying to cook to eat everything. So this week’s kitchen witchery is a study in using things up. I made some pancakes and used the last bit of heavy cream to make whipped cream (obviously). I bought some pumpkin spice soda from Trader Joe’s and thought I could pair it with the last bit of ice cream for a float, a pairing that I recommend.

In bread news, I made a second attempt on the basic hearth bread recipe from the Bread Bible. It came out much better! I understood the instructions better this time and was able to time the rises more successfully. After struggling to score this one I took to the internet to search for “bread scoring tool” and learned that this tool is called a bread lame (“lame” is French for “blade”). It’s basically a curved razor blade on a handle. After watching the bread scoring challenge on the Great British Baking Show, I have been convinced I need to make a Halloween loaf scored with a spiderweb design. So, I have a bit of practice ahead of me. I’ll report back.

makin pancakes
making good choices
new week, new loaf
cross-section!

Finally, here’s a cat photo for your nerves.

Huey the cat lying on her back with her front paws touching in front of her chest — Huey: Chonk in Paradise

weekly update

A Week in the Life: October 18, 2019

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Lindsey

Well we have now lived through two weeks of this shower remodeling process and I have to admit I am about ready to do some murders. I’m so stressed and annoyed by it all. On Monday, we were scheduled to get a hot mop (the waterproofing process, which turns out to be coating the floor of the shower area with tar), but the hot mop guy showed up, declared the shower not ready for him and left. Then I had another guy here for half the next day doing I don’t know what. The hot mop guy returned the day after that. He did a fine job, I suppose, but dragging a bunch of hot tar into the house creates quite a stink and the house was super smokey. I was displeased. The tar has been drying since but yesterday we had the building inspector come to sign off on it all. Unfortunately, he concluded he could not approve the job because the contractors had installed the wrong type of window; it was supposed to be made of tempered glass.

Now I have a tar-filled shower stall and an un-tempered window. I haven’t been able to use the master bathroom for two weeks and my whole house is covered in dust. However, what really set me off was, this afternoon, two guys showed up to drop of materials. They left the front door open when they entered and I told them we have to close the doors because I have cats. I directed them to the bathroom and suggested it might be easier for them to haul everything in through the backdoor. These fools propped the screen open and left the door wide open. I went back to check on the progress only to find a clear path of escape. Luckily, my cats hate people and were hiding, but they could have gotten out! I am furious. To top this off, they set one of their bits of equipment in the still-sticky tar. I went to move it and it pulled off a bit of tar in the process. How fucking deficient do you have to be to set something in WET TAR. Reader, I’ve had it. I can’t wait for this shit to end. My shower better look flawless and be leak-free by the end of next week.