A Month of Juice

It's been a month since we bought a juicer (May 22nd).  I would have been the first to guess that it would quickly find a home in a cabinet, to be pulled out from time to time to impress other people or make the kids happy.

Instead, a funny thing has happened:  I've lost 9 kilograms.  That's 20 pounds!  From 117 point mumble-mumble down to 108.1!  I am still a big, heavy guy, but not as heavy as I was.

Nor as light as I will be.

I am just going to answer some questions that I've been asked a lot.  Once again, I'm not sure how to go about making a narrative of this, because I'm not sure what the end of the story is, exactly.

Q:  What do you put in the juice?
A:  Buchu, kale, spinach, cabbage, carrot, and ginger are my reliable standbys.  Add to the mix apple, asian pear, orange, beets, various greens as found at the market, tomato, cucumber, broccoli, and whatever else I can find cheap.  That's the juice itself, then I add some fresh tofu and blend it until it changes from a sharp green to more of an avocado green.

Q:  What is buchu?
A:  Allium Tuberosum.  The Wikipedia article is pretty straightforward about it, but if you Google it you will find that many consider it to be a very healthy food.  Koreans make a kind of fresh (not aged) kimchi with it that is served with one of my favorite foods, pork soup (

Q:  Isn't the whole juice cleanse thing kind of...
A:  There's no need to be polite.  You can call it bullshit in front of me.  Strictly speaking, yes.  There are so many conditions piled on the juice fast concept that many of them alone would make a big difference.  For example, most of my snacking now is juice, fruit or vegetables, and I have had soda once since starting this.  I miss potato chips almost as much as I miss my parents.

Q:  What's the most difficult part of this diet?
A:  Making the juice.  It takes a solid 90 minutes from the time I start washing vegetables until the components of the juice machine are drying on the rack and the juice is in containers in the fridge.  If I am also cooking for the kids, and doing dishes from other people in the house, it adds to the time I spend standing in front of the sink.

Q:  Is this sustainable?
A:  Not long term.  My friend Chad did 30 days of nothing but juice,  I haven't gone more than two or three days without other food.  My intent is to integrate vegetables and fruits into my diet.  When I look at the typical pile of vegetables that are going to be my calorie intake for the day,
 A friend told me that his daughter said I would probably lose weight and be healthy if I just ate all of those vegetables.  True, but less likely to happen than me drinking the bottles of juice that came from them.

Q:  Aren't you hungry a lot?

A:  Yes, but when I am hungry I drink some juice or water.  That's the plan, anyway.  When I am on the ball, and carrying a a bottle with me, I sip it through the day.  The point of this is to convince my body that I am not, in fact, starving.  In the past I've done this with chocolates, junk food, and sugary drinks.  The juice is a dose of vitamins and stuff that gets the message across and actually addresses legitimate needs that my body has.  Plus it is just not that appetizing as a snack, so it tends to shut down the hunger pretty quickly.

Q:  Do you feel lighter?

A:  Believe it or not, after losing 9 kilograms I still don't feel lighter.  The change has been gradual enough that I don't feel like I'm walking on air.  That said, my feet don't hurt as much.  I used to wake up in the morning with sore feet.  After all, they carried me around all day.  Now that I've set so much weight aside, I have fewer leg cramps and my feet are happier.

Q:  So what other differences have you noticed?

A:  My clothes fit more loosely.  A few very large shirts and pants have passed into ridiculously baggy territory, and the pants that were too tight last month are very wearable now.  I've gone from a 44 inch waist to 42, and can probably wear the 40 inch pants that are hidden in the closet.  

Q:  And...?

A:  I've been on Sevikar for hypertension (high blood pressure) for about five years now.  With it I had been maintaining a blood pressure of about 120/90, which is on the high end of normal.  My most recent measurement was 107/67.  Not low enough to be a problem, but creeping down.  This medicine only costs about $15 per month, but the idea of ditching it is very appealing.

Q:  What do you want to eat when you finish your diet?

A:  Here's the thing, I've been eating things I want to eat from time to time.  This isn't like coming back from Nepal.  For one thing, when I returned from Nepal my body was a rice burning machine; I could put away a heaping plateful of rice and dal curry, and ask for seconds.  I came to Korea and always, ALWAYS ordered a second bowl of rice to go with my food.  In some ways, I never got over that.  But now my stomach has gotten used to taking in less food.  When I have eaten real food, I get full much faster.  I recently cooked hamburgers, french fries and broccoli for the kids.  I served myself fries and broccoli, but no burger.  I had a few bites from each of the kids' burger, maybe a third of one burger total, and that was enough.  My stomach was done, and it told me so.

The problem is that my brain just loves a good burger.  If I had cooked one for myself, I would have eaten it plus what Maxine and Quinten left.  I am truly in a battle against my own brain, and always have been.  Now at least my stomach is more on my side.

Q:  You didn't answer the question.  Stop lecturing me and tell me what you want to eat.

A:  Jeez, no need to be a jerk about it.  I want to go to Pizza Mall.  It's a pizza buffet with some of the best tasting pizza I've had in Korea.  $10 for lunch, $13 for dinner and on weekends.  It's a dangerous reward, but I'm also considering it a test:  will I be able to eat a reasonable amount at a buffet, or will I pig out?  I am trying to set myself up for success on this one.  I will pick up one slice at a time.  I will savor each slice.  I will rest before returning to the buffet.  I will drink water, and maybe have some juice before I go.  I will get my money's worth in satisfaction rather than volume.  I can do this.

Q:  Have there been any downsides to this?

A:  My body is coming around, but for the first two or three weeks it was convinced that I was starving.  I was short tempered and easily tired.  The food was gone, and so was the fun.  The first three days without caffeine was particularly painful, though revealing of my dependence.  Resuming coffee consumption has made me a much more cheerful dieter.  And I have had some slight back pain.  I assume that this is a combination of changing bikes (my mountain bike was in the shop for two weeks, putting me on the road bike, then back to the mountain bike), carrying my body weight differently (maybe my posture needs to adjust?), and all the time I spend hunkered over the juice machine and kitchen sink.  Honestly, I am still somewhat irritable after meal times.

Q:  Aren't you missing out on all that vegetable fiber? 

A:  Nope.  If you don't want to read about poops and farts, skip this next bit.  I am missing out on some of it, for sure.  My clockwork throne time (every morning, 15 minutes after waking up if not sooner, a few sips of coffee can always hurry it along) has become intermittent: every couple of days or so, and sometimes not of satisfying consistency.  And (ick) green.  Red when I supplement with beets.  But some fiber is soluble, and I am getting that.  And the juicer is not perfect.  Since I don't strain my juice, it has a consistency thicker than V8, like pulpy orange juice.  The tofu also adds to the mix.  And here's a shocker:  I don't fart as much as before.  It hasn't quite become special enough to write home about (Dear Mom:  You won't believe what just happened!), but it's definitely less frequent and less hazardous!

Q:  Ick.

A:  I told you not to read that last part if you can't deal with bodily functions.  Speaking of which, when I'm on the full juice and water, I have to pee every hour or two.  Giving the kidneys a workout, I guess.  Hopefully avoiding kidney stones.

Q:  I want to ask you more questions about this, but I'm not actually another person.  I'm just you pretending to be another person.

A:  Wow, this is awkward.  I've really enjoyed this conversation, but finding out that all along it wasn't real... I feel used.  By myself.  Ew.

That's enough Q and A.  Maybe more than enough.  Anyway, I would be happy to answer more questions.  From real people.  Who aren't me.  Just write them in the comments here, or on my Facebook link to this post, or just post on my wall.  

How I Met Horyon

Memories are wax sculptures in our minds.  As we handle them, they get warm, and reform, or perhaps deform, to fit more comfortably in our grip.  The sharp edges smooth out.  Bits that make us look foolish or selfish shrink, and sometimes fall off.  Parts that we are proud of are enlarged, and made smooth.

When I met her, I had no idea that she was the answer to my prayer.  More plea than prayer, really, a literal mountain top surrender to God's will.  Begging for help.  I was revisiting Nepal, where I had apprenticed in being alone, where language and geography had tag-teamed me into believing that my previous life in America was nothing more than a half-forgotten dream. I was once again experiencing the isolation that lives in the places where all you can see is the sky, green fields, and gray stone. Where there is nowhere to go but down.

In Nepal the doorways trained me to obey one command: keep your head down while passing through.  The penalty for disobeying?  A direct assault on the organ responsible for the poor decision.  My rebellious brain suffered one punishing blow after another, for I come from a race of stiff necked people.  Eventually the tedium of washing blood out of my hair and the desire to spend a day without a splitting headache gave rise to obedience.  I bowed my head as I walked through doors.  At first resentfully, with much grumbling, then with resignation and sadness.  Finally, like a well trained dog, without even thinking about it.  Weeks after returning to America I found myself nodding deeply as I passed through door frames that would allow even the most elevated of hats to pass undisturbed on my head.

In Korea there was a different kind of training, with a different command:  keep your heart to yourself.  The girl who chose alcohol instead of me.  The girl who suddenly stopped returning my calls.  The girl who lied to me.  The girl who agreed with me that we didn't belong together.  Each one a blow urging me to stop looking for love, to get used to the idea of being alone.  To keep my heart down.

I returned to Nepal for a month.  Alone.  At the top of a 9,000 foot hill in the shadow of the Himalayas I sat down on a rock and talked with God.  I cried out, "I am so tired of being alone, but if you want me to be alone for the rest of my life, then so be it...  But I have no idea how I am going to do it."

The only answer was silence, though by the time I returned to the Land of the Morning Calm, I was cloaked in a calm of my own.  Vacations are often refreshing, so I did not recognize this calm as an answer to prayer.  Hindsight reveals that it was part of the answer, the Breath before the Word.

The Answer showed up in my classroom on February 1st, 2000.  One of four students in a class that should have been cut from the schedule.  The highest level of English conversation available at our institute, it was a class for talking.  The news, science, social issues, food, our hobbies and habits.  Some grammar, but mostly talk.  Lousy attendance.  Usually two students, sometimes four, but always The Answer was one of them, ready to talk, listen, learn.

During the third week of class her father invited me to have dinner at their home.  As he was driving me home afterwards, she and I sat in the back seat and held hands.  I didn't know what she was thinking, and couldn't have told you what I was thinking either.  A conversation without words flowing just under the conversation with her father about something that I pretended to be interested in.

The last class, a Friday.  I was early and she was waiting, so we talked in the hall for an hour before class.  No other students, so we talked for another hour, then we went out and talked for two or three hours more.  As we talked over one neglected beer, my hand wanted to continue the conversation it had started in the car with hers the previous week, so it did.  Neither of us said anything about it as our hands conversed, at first casually, then more intimately.  Once again, we ended the evening without acknowledging the silent conversation.

On the way home I took a detour to the mountain top by way of a pedestrian bridge over the rail yard in Bujeon.  The joy that had been percolating in me just bubbled up and for a moment I Gene Kellyed my way across the bridge, laughing and telling the sky, "I've found her! I've found her!"  My moment of clarity, when The Answer to my prayer was made abundantly clear to me.

Two weeks later, after dinner in a top floor restaurant, flowers, chocolates, and perfume, I suddenly realized that I was going to propose to a woman I had met only six weeks previously.  No more than a hundred hours of conversation, only two weeks of actual dating, but I had never in my life been more sure of anything.  "Will you marry me?"

Her answer, forever emblazoned on my heart, "I beg your pardon?"  An opportunity to laugh in this sacred moment, I took it.  Her second answer we are still living out for the world to see, for she said, "Yes!" and we have never looked back.

To you, the reader, this may seem like the magic moment, when it all came together.  In actuality, the magic is bound up in the days that follow.  In the joy and pain, the boredom and excitement, the triumphs and defeats.  The magic is not in the moment of clarity, but in remembering the moment of clarity and believing in it when you can't see your hand in front of your face for the fog.

Sack Family Update

Spring has pretty much sprung, and the cherry blossoms are now mostly gone.  I did take a few photos, but this one of Maxine is the only one worth including.

"Don't take the picture while my mouth is open."
"Not possible."

Maxine was a bit upset that we didn't take a family picture with these beautiful blossoms in the background.  For her they still happen only once a year.  For me they happen every year.  Funny how the same interval can feel so different.

Maxine is in fourth grade now.  Which, by the way, just doesn't seem possible to me.  She sometimes has some big assignments to do.  Last weekend her teacher had the students figure out how much money they had spent, then count out one grain of rice for each won (the Korean currency, about the same as a penny) and bring it to class.

1,472, 1473, 1,744...  What?  DON'T TALK TO ME!
WHERE WAS I?!?!?!

Horyon suggested that I could do that while she took care of Quinten.  I told her that I would figure out the best way to cheat, so let's think carefully about who is doing the helping on this one.  She spent almost 11,000 won that week, which was an exceptionally high amount.  I still need to ask her how the class went, because I didn't hear back about it.

As much as I like Maxine's school, they occasionally do things like this which make me cringe just a little.  Horyon explained that this was to help them understand the value of the money they spend.  I get that.  Not sure how this is better than just keeping track of what they spend and on what, but that's okay.  She also said that it is to help build number awareness.  I think that the two of them spent a total of three hours on this project.  To me, the time would have been better spent working on estimation, weighing, and figuring out real world ways to get around measuring rice grain by grain.

In the mean time, Quinten acquired three plastic discs (he calls them medals) that are accessories for a freakishly expensive Japanese toy that you wear on your wrist like a watch.  When you insert a disc, it makes a different noise.  The discs cost 1,000 won (a dollar) apiece, and the watch thing costs 60,000 won (conversion left to the reader as a math exercise).  Fortunately, Quinten has not asked for the watch thing.  He bought one disc, and the store keeper gave him two more.  A few days later he invented The Medal Game:  you flick your disc into your opponents disc.  If you knock it off, you get a point.  If they both fall off, it's a draw.  If they both stay on, your opponent gets to flick their disc into yours.  It is surprisingly similar to Carrom, which I first saw in Nepal.

Quinten consistently beat Horyon, but I totally beat him on this one.

 Speaking of Quinten obsessions, have I mentioned that we have a stag beetle?  It is Quinten's pet.  It will teach him a valuable lesson about death some day, just like the two beetles before it did.  But first it will scurry around, eat bug jelly, and be gross for a while.  I believe it's name is "Stag", in the same way that Maxine's turtle is called, "Turtle."  We are just not that good at naming pets in our family.

As if my existence weren't disturbing enough, I'm going to walk on my food.  Yum.

So the last few weeks have been rough.  Maxine and Quinten each spent time in the hospital (read about it here), and Horyon and I have both been fighting off low-level colds.  Friday mornings are usually free for me, so I clean up the kitchen to get a running start on the weekend.  This week I had an event at Maxine's school, so I couldn't catch up on my sleep or clean up.  Horyon was at school until after nine, so I decided that we would not eat at home.  Maxine and I discussed our options, and ended up at Pizza Mall in front of Kyungsung University.  Pizza Mall is a buffet featuring eight kinds of pizza, spaghetti, clams, fried rice, cream of mushroom soup, a decent salad bar, and a dessert bar with ice cream.  The kids were about $5 and $7, and I was $13, making for a very affordable dinner.  Even though it was Friday night at 6:30, we only had to wait about 5 minutes to be seated.

Pizza?  What pizza?  All gone already!

We enjoyed our dinner, then walked home.  On the way we had a small adventure, stopping to take pictures on a rock by the huge intersection in our neighborhood.  We tried for one of those jumping pictures, but my phone camera wasn't up to the low light levels.

A rare moment of cooperation.

Later we got off of the main street, away from the traffic.  We stopped at my favorite bakery, and Quinten was thrilled to find a store that sells skeletons.  Well, one skeleton, anyway.  He spotted it from the street and dragged us in, demanding to have his picture taken with it.

BFFs, no fibula!

I considered buying it, but it costs about $2,000.  That seems kind of steep to me, especially since it has never been inside someone's body (I asked.  I had to!)  Quinten will have to settle for his book about skeletons.

So if any of you have any skeletons in your closet that you are willing to share, let me know.