Rain Squalls

It rained early this morning, about 2:30. It was raining so hard it woke me up; I went out to close the door to the cat run since there was also a light breeze from the south. It rained for about 15 minutes but I couldn't get back to sleep for may be an hour. I was so tired when my alarm went off I skipped the sunrise walk.

This is Unicorn Challenge Day 13 (W2 D 6); it is a Feast Day (~2200 calories) with 6 to 8 minutes of AMRAP. I only did 7 minutes of AMRAP since I skipped that one day when I had burnt my fingers the previous night. This is the same AMRAP as on Thursday, as many rounds as possible of 10 swings, 10 goblet squats, 5 double clean push press, and 10 triceps extensions. In the 7 minutes I did 5 rounds each of the swings & goblet squats and 4 rounds each of the double clean push press & triceps extensions. Once again I am sweating but not breathing hard; I can tell I am getting a good workout and at the right intensity. I can just feel muscles beginning to shake at the last few reps of each set of moves on the final round I did.

I think I have solved the protein powder & spirulina blob problem with the proothies. Since I add a couple ice cubes to make the proothie less dense, today I put them in right after I added all the liquid ingredients; sort of creating a mini-floe in the blender cup. I then add the spirulina, protein powder, & flax/chia mix; like walruses hauling out on a floe! Finally I add the greens or fruit and blend it up. It worked today; hopefully this is the solution to the powders sticking to the side of the blender jar.

The floe ...

... hauling out on the floe.

With a layer of mango.

Since this is a Feast Day, I used the other half of the mango from last week. If you recall, last week I mentioned that my protein powder was chocolate flavored and I should get something different for when I was using fruits. Yesterday I picked up some 'unflavored' pea protein; I think it would be more appropriate to label it 'no added flavors' because it does have a distinct flavor. I think I will add some vanilla the next time to mask the pea protein flavor. 

For lunch I had the Lemongrass Pork Ribs from Kokua Market and green salad with beets & bacon bits. 

I had started making the soy milk as I started preparing my lunch; it is a very active lunch. I again used two 1/2 cup batches of soaked soy beans to make the milk. I emptied the okara in to the nut milk bag I got yesterday. I was able to get almost an additional cup of fluid out of the okara; I added it to the last batch of soy milk that I was boiling. That last bit topped off the bottle so I had a very full half gallon of homemade soy milk!

A little more than 3/4 cup ...

... or about 200 ml.

After dinner I made Okara Breakfast Granola using the Simple Awesome Cooking recipe. Sort of; I didn't want to buy more nuts or dried fruit so I used the walnuts and apricots that we already had. I also didn't have honey so I used granulated xylitol and we have olive oil which has a flavor that I didn't think would go well with the rest of the ingredients so I used MCT oil instead. I did pick up old-fashioned oats at Kokua Market. It did not set up like regular granola; there are a lot of fines. I think that is because I did not use honey which would have bound things together.

Mixing all the ingredients.

Before.

After. It's a little darker. Definitely more powdery with all the mixing.

The food porn from Simple Awesome Cooking.

My granola.

For dinner I had the New Zealand King Salmon Chowder from Kokua Market that I picked up when I went to get the oatmeal for the granola. I also had an Ezekial English Muffin because I didn't want to buy a whole loaf of a nice chewy rustic bread to go along with the chowder but I needed more carbs today. (Chinook have been introduced to New Zealand. I am not sure if the fish Kokua gets are raised or wild caught. I wonder if their run timing is opposite the run timing in their native Pacific Northwest?)

The Roommates & DT had gone to Curtis & Lori's; The Potential Most Favorite Roommate was there to cut Jenny's hair & DT went to do laundry. They stayed for dinner and brought back some Hawaiian food; I ate a small snack to round out the ~2200 calories that I needed for today.

I think Halloween is a fun time of year to see what people will come up with for decorations and costumes. Here's a cool Facebook post from Tricia. I can't believe they put up with that!

This was also cool; would this be a coven? Or a flotilla?

I have actually eaten lutefisk and did not find it that bad. I went to a lutefisk feed fund raiser for one of the Sons of Norway lodges one year just to try it. I was taught how to eat it by a woman of Irish ancestry who would go with her Norwegian husband every Christmas season for the lutefisk feed. The dinner was served family-style, with a group of 8 to 10 people at a table. The large bowls of lutefisk & boiled potatoes were set on the table with bowls of sour cream and butter; you helped yourself to however much you wanted. She said the best way to eat it was cover it with butter & sour cream, just like you would the potatoes! I guess if you put enough butter & sour cream on anything it can start to taste good. I did also try the lutefisk unadorned; it was somewhat gelatinous & translucent with hardly any flavor. I'm pretty sure all of that is a by-product of being pickled in lye; won't have to worry about swallowing any bones!

High protein, bland flavor ... might be on to something here.

I think Pam is on to something here, too!

I thought this was pretty cool when I saw it.

In case you were having trouble figuring out the proper way to wear your mask, my friend Tricia posted this helpful guide on Facebook.

Not sure when this will actually be available for viewing but it seems about time for a Native American family drama. Hopefully they will get this collaborative effort right.

Here's a cool sign that more businesses could put up. 

With Tier 2 we can now eat at restaurants with 5 people who do not all have to be from the same household unit. Here is more information if you are concerned about the safety of eating indoors. One thing I liked about this article is that they also look at not only how safe it is for diners, they also look at the safety of the workers. Sometimes it seems that people forget that its not only themselves they need to be concerned about when it comes to how SARS-CoV-2 spreads.

I whole heartedly support this. Everyone who is making sacrifices, give yourself a pat on the back. But be careful you don't hurt yourself doing that, you want to minimize going to the urgent care or ER right now.

And here is the reason why being careful about wearing your mask, physically distancing, good hand hygiene, & choosing outdoor rather than indoor activities is so important. I am frustrated that very simple, cost-effective, & easy-to-implement public health measures are not being widely used to cut the transmission rate.

 

There were 90 new COVID-19 cases reported today for a total of 14,553 known cases. There were 3 deaths reported today, brining the death toll up to 212. The 7-day average for Oʻahu is 57 with a positivity rate of 2.5%. There are 1198 active cases with 79% being considered recovered. After the initial spike in air travel, things are dropping off. Good thing, too, a lot of visitors who came with negative COVID-190 tests are saying they don't need to wear masks or follow preventive measures because they tested negative. Once. Up to 2 weeks ago. There needs to be more information given out on planes, at the airport, and at the hotels letting them know they are not exempt from doing things to minimize the spread. They are not invincible because of their negative test.

It is now Saturday and they still have not updated this graphic. I wonder if they are going to eliminate it since it was in conflict with the other information put out by the department on the number of contact tracers they had working? (They rarely jived.) Also notice that they are no longer listing how many contact tracers are in reserve on the other Department of Health dashboard.)