It's weird not to run.

I'm mildly concerned about any setbacks this time off might cause, but whatever.

My right hip still aches and makes me ever so conscious of every move, but the pain is slowly lessening. I'm still babying it and giving it what I think it needs--lots of stretching, and last night I did a cardio+strength training dvd I had knocking around. I was surprised at how challenging it was even after all this training I've been doing. Lots of sweating and 1:15 later, I felt glad to be doing something physical. Today my ass is sore from all the glute work, and that always makes me happy.

Hopefully keeping up the activities, even if they don't include running right now will keep me squarely on the path to the marathon. We'll see how it goes.

I might do the DVD again tonight and then plan a short run in the morning to test the waters.

This downtime certainly makes me think about how true cliches can be: eggs in one basket and tricks up yer sleeve and all that. It's good to know that I'm okay even if I can't run for a while, or don't dance for a time, or whatever. No matter what, I've still got me; and I guess as long as I keep sight of that, things will be fine.

With all this fun in the kitchen lately, I've also been thinking that if I didn't write, if I didn't teach, it might be fun to have a little cafe somewhere and feed a community of people fresh, locally grown food. That would be grand: have a little French-style cafe open all hours, serving humble, delightful food--no fancy dinners, please; no souffles; and low maintenance, too. Meaning: I'm the chef only when I want to be, but mostly I'll be in charge of the successful concept with top employees doing the tedious work, except when I'm game. This little cafe is my plan for sustainability in between book tours. Might be fun. But that's why I'd only want to cook when I want to, because if I HAD to do it like a job it might cease to be fun.

Writing, on the other hand, never really was fun; it simply has always been what I've done. It's work, man. But work ain't bad when it's what you've always chosen to do. I just came across a heap of poems I wrote about 15 years ago, and dang if they don't have similar friggin' themes to this here blog. It's nice to know I am who I always was, and I can hope that I'm getting closer with time and not just spinning my wheels. . . .

And maybe I'll figure out just what it is I'm up to one of these days. But then again, that could take the fun out of it, too. You never know.

As for the cookery, yesterday's zucchini bread morphed into something resembling polenta in a shell. Tasty. Odd. I haven't come up with a good use for it, yet. Too sophisticated to be a doorstop; too oily for a paperweight; but I bet if I poured some gravy or even baked beans on top of a few slices I could get a couple of Brits to eat it and say YUM!

So, I started over today, determined to find out how the recipe was designed to turn out, and . . . success. Less zucchini and finely grated parmesan rather than shredded romano were the answer. But now that my bread looks like the loaf in the magazine, I kind of prefer my funky, crusty, zucchini polenta better.

Such is life, no?