Let’s be brave and set up that field hospital in the trenches that Pope Francis is calling for… like this young woman taking care of people without homes, facing her fears and overcoming anger and disappointment.
Last night Roberto and I attended a blind wine tasting hosted by a couple of our friends here in Virginia. The tasting part of the evening was really excellent – a fun excuse to sample multiple wines, debate your spouse about flavors and pretend not to be cheating while conversing with friends. We had a great time.
Like all the guests, we brought appetizers to accompany the wine. I wanted to make something simple but intriguing and found just the thing: roasted olives. What appealed to me is that the recipes I found took a familiar dish and made it more interesting. La Fuji Mama and Lindsay Olives gave me a good basis to start, but because this was our kitchen, there was a certain amount of improv. Here’s what we did:
- 1 16oz jar Garlic Stuffed Olives
- 1 16oz jar Pimento Stuffed Olives
- 1 12 oz jar Kalamata Olives
- 12 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tbs Herbs de Provence
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 lemon
- Equipment: medium bowl, 13×9 casserole dish, serving bowl
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Drain the olives and put them in a medium bowl.
- Mix in the olive oil, garlic, and Herbs de Provence.
- Zest the lemon and add the zest to the mixture.
- Juice the lemon into the mixture and stir thoroughly.
- Spread the mixture in a 13×9 casserole dish
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool, then transfer to a serving bowl and serve at room temperature with crackers or alone.
Roberto did all the chopping, zesting and juicing and let me supervise. We loved the result and so did our friends. In this case we served them with crackers and made toothpicks available. Though our dish was enjoyed, there were enough leftovers to bring home. We chopped up some of the olives in our Cuisinart and spread them on crackers for an afternoon snack. Oh, and we baked some of the chopped mixture on chicken breasts for dinner tonight…
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HOMILY: Love Anyway
How do you translate the dictum “Love Anyway” into your daily life? It’s an easy catchphrase but a tough mission. Fr. Brian Zumbrum gives us some insight and examples in this week’s homily.
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Not Your Typical Valentine’s Day
This post is so true, a lived experience of what the pope said yesterday in his advice about living together and how married couples should pray “‘give us this day our daily love,'”, teach us to love each other, to care for each other. The more you entrust yourselves to the Lord, the more your love will be ‘for ever’, able to renew itself and to overcome every difficulty.”
It snowed in Atlanta, causing a traffic jam that lasted into eternity (or somewhere between twelve and eighteen hours) and eventually required the assistance of the National Guard…
…and Rolling Stone put Pope Francis on the cover. Crazy, huh? Next, Deadspin will send a journalist along during the pope’s visit to the Holy Land and the apocalypse will really begin. Except that it won’t.
A lot of times, what seems weird, shiny, ridiculous and portentous is just one more cycle of life in on our big, complex planet. This was not the first big snow storm that ever caused a traffic jam in Atlanta. In fact, a blizzard hit in 1993 (though that was a Saturday and kids weren’t trapped in their schools).
Pope Francis was not the first pope to be Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. He was the third. He may be the ultimate in Catholic click bait, but what he’s saying is about 2,000 years old. Seriously.
We are not about to face the zombie X-Games. In three days or three hours, our lives will slip back into their quotidian rhythm. But perhaps we can gain something from this week’s headlines.
Northerners may pride themselves on being able to handle blizzards, but Southerners are smart enough to live in a warm climate in the first place. For me, the inconvenience of one snowstorm every few years definitely beats weeks of subzero temperatures. There’s no point in mocking the people of the greater Atlanta region; they have suffered enough and (hopefully) learned from their troubles.
Nor is it necessary to speculate about when coverage of the pope will jump a shark, because being the top ranked search term is not really the core of his job. Sharing the joy of the Gospel is his key mission. Yes, he uses modern means of communication to do that, but no, the medium is not the message.
What we can learn from all the media chatter this week is to be prepared. Like, seriously, get ready for a winter storm in Georgia even though it’s been a few years since that happened. And let your heart be open to find God in strange places, including the pages of a magazine better known for encouraging hedonism than prayer.
We did it!!
Despite my fears of being last, a recurrent neck injury and my truly messed up final month of training, Roberto and I finished our first half-marathon. Yep. I said our first because it probably won’t be our last and we are already planning to be part of the Parkway Classic in April. The blisters that emerged somewhere between miles six and eight are going to have to be popped soon to prevent real trouble, but they don’t hurt much. I’m still glowing and a bit high from our accomplishment. We had set a goal of finishing in 3 hours and 30 minutes and made it with 42 seconds to spare, crossing the finish line together.
The Team in Training inspiration dinner proved to be both funny and heartwarming, partly because one of the presenters spent a good deal of her time photo-bombing. That might sound rude, but eight year old Emily Whitehead is a survivor whose parents shared the story behind the amazing film “Fire With Fire” and the hijacked-HIV cure that Emily was the first child ever to receive. Watching Emily give her parents bunny ears while her father talked about his frustrations and fears during the process underscored the importance of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s mission of funding researchers and supporting families. Thanks to our donors and the donors before them, Emily is now a pretty normal child with an extraordinary story.
There were more immediate, selfish pleasures too. For the first time since going gluten-and-dairy free, there was something for me to eat everywhere we went with a minimum of fuss. All I had to do was ask. In fact, I even got a free lunch because my post-race pasta took longer than the kitchen felt was right.
The weekend was not perfect by any means — in fact it was raining when we landed in Orlando and headed over to the expo to collect our race materials. I chickened out of my impulse to carry Donald Duck along for the race in the spare water bottle slot on my belt, a slot that was there because one of my water bottles went missing the night we packed. The back of my race tee wound up a bit more stylized and urban than I intended when it slid to the ground right after I decorated it with glitter glue. On race morning, I felt significantly less than 100%. Those white shorts may never be truly, perfectly white again. But never mind perfection — there’s still a medal at the finish line no matter how much chocolate fuel you spill in your pockets.
It felt great to be part of such a huge community of volunteers, athletes and families that converged upon Walt Disney World and woke up insanely early for the sake of a race. Perhaps there’s something deeply ancient within us that calls us to achieve beyond our known limits, to challenge ourselves and give witness to the extraordinary.
Tomorrow is another day, a return to work and deadlines and the rest of life. It is also a new day, and each day forward will glow a bit brighter for me with this medal in my heart.
The flag at a community center was flying at half mast in honor of Nelson Mandela yesterday during our twelve-mile training session, and it occurred to me that we all have a long walk to freedom. For Mandela, that walk to freedom was a very public road and it became the title of his autobiography. The world watched his transformation from an angry rebel leader fighting oppression and arguing for the justice of his cause in court to an imprisoned icon — a symbol of freedom so strong that his image and name were banned throughout South Africa — to a free and firm negotiating partner, to an elected official presiding over the birth of a new democratic state and guiding its people towards healing and reconciliation and finally to a revered elder statesman.
Most of us don’t face daily insults to our human dignity, nor do we deal with cruel, systematic discrimination like apartheid. Nor do we deal with the pressure and scrutiny of being a public figure. But we often live within the prison of our hurts and fears, and sometimes those prisons of the mind can be very restrictive and limiting. Since a whiplash injury over a decade ago (and many subsequent re-injuries), I have faced the challenges of frequent physical pain and depression. Team in Training has helped me break out of the mindset that limitations are part of my life and develop strategies for accomplishing my goals in spite of obstacles. Not only am I becoming an endurance athlete, but my approach to life has changed due to the coaching we receive about preparing and learning lessons from each outcome, good or bad.
Every week at training, we have a Mission Moment presented by a fellow team member, an honored teammate or another person connected to the program. This week, I gave the mission moment:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiJKjpONdZU&w=420&h=315]
Please join Team Bacalski. Help us fight blood cancers and support patients and their families. Donate now and help us reach our goal before the end of the year!
Categories
A Day of Firsts
A day of firsts!! pic.twitter.com/NEyhuR2K8R
— LH Donovan Bacalski (@LisaHeleneDB) December 7, 2013
I’m a bit too tired/wired to write… but I do have much to say about today. Stay tuned.
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Kitchen Advice for the Rest of Us
There are people with a passion for cooking, people with a gift for it and people who love food so much they will go to extremes to make the perfect meal.
And then there are the rest of us. The ones who cook to eat. I enjoy kitchen time, but I don’t live for it and I wouldn’t say that I’m a gifted chef. So this article was right up my alley – practical ways to be productive in the kitchen without dropping your entire bank account in fancy equipment or the perfect pan.
Just cook, people. And enjoy your feast:-)
Yesterday the city of San Francisco made a young leukemia survivor’s wish come true when he became Bat Kid and fought crime with the help of volunteers from across the city (and a very cool Lamborghini Bat Mobile, complete with police escort). Thousands cheered him on, including the president, and social media went crazy for this wonderful story about strangers helping strangers, and a child’s desire to be a superhero inspiring us all.
This story really rang home for those of us in Team in Training. We were reminded this morning that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society was formed because of a child named Robert who died from leukemia at the age of 16 at a time when blood cancers had a 5% survival rate. Thanks to decades of hard work in scientific labs funded by donations from people like you, the survival rate for childhood blood cancers is now 95%. Roberto and I have been deeply moved by the people we have met and the generosity of our friends, family, and even strangers who have slipped us cash for the cause. Whether you were part of our Something Stupid campaign in October or you’re buying Christmas cards and gifts from Abbey Press*, or you’ve just been saying a ton of prayers for us, know that we are deeply grateful and welcome you into our own small conspiracy of kindness.
*We get 50% of the profit through November 30 — just visit Abbey Press Fundraising, shop and choose VA, Team in Training when you check out. You can select either of us as your seller;)