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“What a fool believes” is another one of those old old songs has been running around in my head, stirring up memories and ideas and questions. I can remember hearing it at age 13, with my childhood experiences still current events, and applying the song’s situation  to being in 6th grade, but at the same time sensing that my understanding was far from complete.

The song concerns a man’s meeting up with a woman in whom he had a deep interest, but who does not return it and, he now realizes, never did. “(He was) trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created …  she had a place in his life. He never made her think twice.”

There it was: unrequited love.  At the time, I was still hoping that it only happened in grade school, with people you didn’t really know, who you just had a crush on, and that adults didn’t have to suffer such indignities. At least they must know how to deal with it. Later I would discover that suffer adults did, but most of the time they didn’t talk about it.

Watching the video today, I am struck by several things. The musicianship–it’s not always easy to find songs that will hold their listenability for 30 years. And also Michael McDonald’s long hair — these days I remember the 70′s  long hair style on men only when I see it on film; I forget about it when I’m not looking at old pictures and it always merits a double take. More than anything, the people of the age come across as free, innocent even, people who had not yet dealt with all that has happened in the last 30 years which roughly comprises my adulthood — not to have seen the way the post-WWII life that we assumed would last for hundreds of years was slipping away in just a couple of decades.  Across the years, today the hope is still transparent and real through the song. I liste and reflect that the song is correct about hope and its endurance. Indeed, “he can still believe there’s a place in her life. Somewhere someday, she will return.”

Like King Arthur she will return. And “what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.” I think Paul Simon wrote something along the same lines about the same time. To be able to say that at all is a kind of innocence when it’s compared with modern lyrics, which Pia was complaining about this morning –songs of lies by liars -about violence by violent people, often — and this makes me think “What a fool believes” is still a very sweet song. Even if she didn’t ever love him, even if she never will return. Because, as I’ve been telling my own children, in the end, love belongs to the lover. It’s him that experiences it, not her, anyway. And tragedy is part of life, you can’t escape. So singing about it and making it into a beautiful song that is remembered long after the event, perhaps is enough, I would say, to make the experience worthwhile. Though, since I didn’t experience it and write the song, I can’t be sure.

New Denton establishment offers variety and adventure with a Tex-Mex theme

So you’ve been wondering where to get some Mexican food in Denton. You don’t want to visit one of the ubiquitous taco casas? You say you want to sit down in a chic environment and have someone bring you something you can feel some serious anticipation about? You want honest, fresh authentic ingredients cooked with care and perhaps even passion? Look no further than South Denton, where a new restaurant called Mi Taza has been constructed with a chic bistro setting. And the price? Cheaper than Don Jose’s or South of the Border for sure.

This is a place where you can get fajitas in more or less the usual style–choose a plate of tacos, enchiladas, burritos tostadas or quesadillas if you want to play it safe–but the real stars of the menu show here are the  Latin and South American food items,the cachapa, the soups and the arepas. Let me sing the song of the arepas! This cross between a gordita and a corn muffin, stuffed with chicken, beef or gouda cheese, is delicioso without a precedent. You have to try the arepas to understand. I wake up nights and think about them.

The cachapa, a corn meal pancake folded around shredded beef and cheese, is as flavorful and succulent as anything I’ve ever had at a 50$ a plate restaurant, Mexican or otherwise.  The soups are truly superior and again range from the pedestrian — tortilla soup — to the exotic — sopa de apio, made from the casava root and I promise, a very very tasty bowl of comfort food it is. You can get fine coffee, granitas, agua frescas and flan and sopapillas as well. Truly this is a restaurant where the adventurous can sit down and break (corn) bread with the more meat and potatoes types (potatoes, by the way, come from the Andes of South America).  I encourage you to make the trip down Teasley lane, pull off into the Kroger parking lot, and look on the southeast side for the Mi Taza coffee mug sign.  If you’re anything like me, you’ll be glad you did.

Mi Taza Latin Cafe and Restaurant

5017 Teasley Lane Denton TX 76210 (940) 591-9999

Tuesday to Friday 11-2:30 and 5-9

Saturday 11-9           Sunday 9-2

from a press release by the City of Fort Worth:

Movies That Matter: A Human Rights Film Series.  December 8, 6:30 p.m. (reception), 7 p.m. (program and film); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St . No admission charge. Movies That Matter is a quarterly program of the City of Fort Worth Human Relations Commission . This screening — presented in partnership with the Fort Worth Library, the Modern, Multicultural Alliance, the Fort Worth Independent School District and the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau — will feature the award-winning film, When I Rise.

 The film tells the inspiring story of a gifted black music student at the University of Texas who is thrust into a civil rights storm that changes her life forever. Barbara Smith Conrad is cast in an opera to co-star with a white male classmate, fueling a racist backlash from members of the Texas legislature. When Barbara is expelled from the cast, the incident escalates to national news, prompting unexpected support from a pop superstar. This small-town girl, whose voice and spirit stem from her roots in East Texas , emerges as an internationally celebrated mezzo-soprano and headlines on stages around the world. When I Rise is an inspirational journey toward finding forgiveness within oneself.

 Seating is limited for this FREE event which will include a special guest appearance and performance by Barbara Smith Conrad. A moderated discussion with Ms. Conrad and Dr. Don Carleton, the film’s executive producer and Executive Director for the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin will follow the film. Tickets for the event will be distributed on a first come, first served basis beginning at 6:30 p.m.

To tie up the juice fast thread — my resolve gave out on the evening of day 6, giving me an accomplishment of six and a half days’ fast. But now, that was just me. Dean is now on day 17. Hard to believe, especially since he’s been making his own juice for the last ten days or so.  He has lost about 15 pounds I think, looks noticeably thinner and I have no idea where he gets the will power. Just thought I’d update so anyone checking the thread would know the conclusion. I’ll update again when he finally goes back to eating food. That may be another ten days or so, because his goal is still a few pounds away and he shows no sign of stopping!

On day 6 we had a couple of challenges. Social events. First we had to attend a class where snacks were provided. We sat there and watched others eat crackers and cheese and drink coke. We drank carrot juice.  And watermelon juice. How did it feel? Well, the not eating crackers and cheese was bad, but not as bad as one might expect. The juice tasted good, really. Just not as good as crackers and cheese would. And the bottom line is, we’re still fasting. Even after the second challenge, which was my son’s 15 year old birthday party. Dean made the pizza, even though he wasn’t eating any. I thought this was a heroic moment, for sure. I made frosting for the cake, and frosted it — without enjoying even one bit. Now that was hard. But again, not as hard as you’d expect. Some discussion occurred about what would happen if you put a piece of pizza into the juicer, but of course that came to nothing, and no one tried it.

Watermelon juice has become a favorite. I decided to check this morning on various calories for juices to see how much I was actually consuming these days. A cup of watermelon juice is 71 calories. A cup of apple is about 100. Cucumber juice is 34, while celery juice is 40; carrot juice clocks in about 130. So if I drank about 8 cups of juice yesterday, that’s probably less than 800 calories. Not much, really. And I feel it, especially at the end of the day. The only thing that will set me right after 5 is Mean Green juice. And going to sleep. Somehow, you can go to bed slightly hungry and wake up all right. One more of the strange vagaries of the human digestion system.

Day Five was when I hit “the wall.” My stomach was grumbling and I began to think more about food, toast, eggs, hamburgers, apples that hadn’t been through a juice machine … everything really.  We tried making V8 juice from a recipe I found online but to be quite honest it was none too palatable.  I think it was the beet that ruined it, though it was in the recipe. There was too much beet, not enough tomato, the garlic gave it a strange kick and the kale had an off taste in that combination.

Dean had said that he got stressed in the eveving and began to rationalize: why not wine while you are on a juice fast? Wine is made out of grapes, and grapes is a juice. I was thankful to hear that he decided against this, at least for now.

Part of the reason we’re hanging tough is that when you’re this far into a fast, you can’t easily bail out and start over later.  You’re already this far in; quitting now has a huge cost, the cost of going through the five five days over again later or admitting “I couldn’t hack it.” This keeps me going. Also I’ve got a couple of spiritual requests in with God and I’m using this fast as a type of prayer, an offering, if you will, for my intentions, my requests. If I quit half way through the fast, I figure God is going to say, “you couldn’t even get through the ten day juice fast. Well, clearly you’re not serious enough about your request. Denied.”

This may show a whacked out spiritual mentality to some, but hey, I’m just putting it out there.

To sum up, whereas you can cheat on a regular diet, a juice fast is so radical that cheating is out of the question. You might sneak a cookie on a regular diet, but on a juice fast, eating any solid invalidates the fast.

The morning, which is when I’m writing right now, is not too bad. Sunrise papaya juice is delicious and I have high energy in the morning generally. The fast gets harder about 2 in the afternoon, as I begin to find it harder to stay positive, and stays tough until about 7:30 p.m., when my body stops complaining (after a cup of Mean Green juice, a powerful appetite suppressor) and gives up on eating for the day.

So: Day 6, I’m ready. I take as my watchword the Bible verse, Matthew 6:16 (King James Version)Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

And I’ll tell you how that works for me tomorrow.

And now it’s almost bedtime on the 4th day. The good: I rarely get hungry, if I get hungry I drink more juice. Although I was out shopping for clothes with the kids this afternoon and I started to get kind of weak and I had to tell them to hurry up and try the stuff on, it was time to get back to “the juice ranch.”

I know which juice to drink when. We now have a routine. But I’m tired of making juice, and the juice machine has developed, to quote Douglas Adams, “an eccentricity in its orbit.” Which means that it often starts to vibrate wildly, like a clothes drier that’s off balance, and then you can either put some firm stuff such as apples or carrots in the feeder tube quickly, and hope it rebalances, or you have to stop it and pull the pulp out.  This may be a result of my trying to make too much juice at once. I haven’t decided.

Juicing takes time, from selecting the materials, washing, preparing them, juicing them and cleaning up it’s about half an hour. And this morning, due to some distractions, no one had gone to the store to get watermelon for the “Papaya Sunrise Juice” and I had to go get it at 8:30 a.m. on an empty juice-fast stomach. So there I was at Kroger, wheeling the cart around with cucumbers, kale, garlic, celery, lemon, a watermelon and green apples in there along with some milk and sweet rolls for the kids. I wondered again what the checker was thinking: “She’s another  one of those juice fasters,” maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe not knowing, or noticing, or caring what I’m buying. But it’s a lot of fruits and vegetables, the real opposite of the typical American grocery store checkout.

Dean said he would like to try a recipe with garlic. I look online. Apparently you can combine carrot, garlic and lemon … I’d try it, though carrot juice is currently our least favorite. At least we have all the materials in the house. And that is saying something, when you can cruise through esoteric juice recipes and you already have the materials. I guess you could say we really live the juice life here, or at least we plan to for 6 more days.

I live on juice. I try to get my head around this, but as my hands are doing the work, maybe my head will have to follow this time. I begin to have a routine. How to make juice. You get the vegetables and or fruits that you plan to juice with. Since you don’t want to wash the juice machine 6 times today, like you did the first day, you now know that your goal should be 5-8 cups of juice per juicing. Because now you need to start stockpiling juice, like an alchoholic with the whiskey bottle hidden at the bottom of her laundry hamper. That way if I get weak at some point during the day I don’t have to make juice to get nutrition, I can just go to the fridge like I have my entire life.

Making juice. Clean all the ingredients, and peel those which need peeling. Cut them into juicer-sized pieces. That would be about 1 inch by 4 inches. Collect any peels or cores or seeds or rinds in the empty dishpan. Put the platter with the juicer sized pieces beside the juicer. Start the machine and run the pieces through. Collect the juice in the red bowl or the 2 cup measure or what you’re going to drink out of right now, then bottle. Now you’ve got to clean the machine. Take it apart and put the pulp in the dishpan with the peelings and rinds. It will be about 4 cups of peelings, etc. The garbage has become heavy of late. Anyway, throw all that out, then use the dishpan to wash the parts of the juicer. Put them in the drainer. Put the machine back together for next time.

Long sigh. How do I feel? Not as hungry as yesterday. But not totally resigned, either. I’m planning to eat a few things once this is over, that’s for sure. Meanwhile, snack this afternoon will be either strawberry-watermelon or carrot-celery … dinner will be Mean Green, I’ve got all the materials, but for breakfast tomorrow, I’m going to need another watermelon.

The kitchen is very clean now. Polished. I don’t know why this is, maybe some kind of reflection of the juicing mentality. I feel good. Basically. Though I still have some fleeting thoughts of cinnamon rolls. But overall, I’m good.

So this is my latest idea: I will go on a juice fast. First question: Where did I get the idea? From a movie I found on Netflix streaming, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, about two guys who loose a bunch of weight and have a whole new lease on life through fasting, eating nothing and drinking only water and fresh-squeezed vegetable and fruit juice. I remembered how years ago a friend of mine  said she had been cured of various illnesses and felt a lot better through drinking fresh carrot juice (along with her regular food).  Then there was a woman at work who told me that your spiritual life could get a boost from fasting. I have put on about 7 pounds since school let out, probably mostly just from eating toast and toast with cinnamon.

Now I will tell you this is probably not a great time for me to go on a fast of any type since we are buying a house and that is stressful. But this is the last chance I have to try this before school starts, at which point I will be extremely busy and as they say, “all bets are off.”

So I got a juice machine, an Omega 1000, from a lady in Corinth who didn’t think she needed it any more and who had advertised it on Craigslist for $60. I picked the machine up on Saturday afternoon, did a trial juicing (carrots and celery) on Sunday afternoon and on Monday morning, it was J (Juice)-Day.

Day 1

The first day of the juice fast is one of novelty. Learning to work the juicer, combining various vegetables and fruits and seeing what you get, it’s all very interesting. I didn’t feel hungry all day, due to drinking juices that included apple, papaya, celery, carrot, and watermelon. But in the evening Dean, who had decided to try the fast with me, said “I’m sick of all these sweet juices. We need something savory.”

“You need to go buy some spinach, then,” I told him. He went to the store and came back with two bunches. I looked up a recipe which involved a bunch of spinach, half a lemon and a tablespoon of honey, then got everything washed and peeled and began to feed the leaves into the juicer. Out of the spigot came a dark green juice with light green foam that smelled of the earth and of leaves. One supermarket-sized bunch of spinach yielded about 1 and a half cup of juice.

The kids came up to watch. “What is that?”

“Spinach juice,” I answered, pouring it into two glass cups.  This is going to be the punch line of a joke for years, I thought. The day mom and dad tried the crazy fad diet, the diet which demanded drinking the juice of a spinach. I was making myself into a kind of latter-day Popeye the Sailor. But it was too late to think of my image. Down the hatch, as they say.

Now spinach juice is not as bad as the children’s cold medicines that I remember taking back in grade school.  It’s also not very palatable, even with lemon and honey. But we drank it, and it had the desired effect of putting off  the feeling of needing food. Our hunger pangs satiated, we went to bed. We got up the next morning without fainting or giving up on the fast. And the morning and the evening were the first day.

Day 2

Juice almighty, I thought as I got up. I made tea, which I decided to allow myself during the fast, then I got the breakfast juice ready — a combination of papaya, apple, watermelon and strawberry. It was really good. But by 11 o’clock I was beginning to feel like I wanted food. I looked longingly at the butter dish, the milk, the cereal in the cupboard. “Eight and a half more days,” I thought to myself.

Dean seemed unfazed. “I can do anything for ten days,” he told me. By afternoon I felt tired, irritable, like the guy in the “Fat , Sick … ” movie who in the first days of fasting just wanted to go to bed and stay until the fast was over. But I got up and went around to my tasks, mostly paperwork and phone calls about the house purchase, and drank some leftover watermelon juice.  In the evening I decided to try to make “Mean Green,” a juice mentioned in the movie, made of celery, cucumber, green apple, ginger, lemon and kale leaves. I made the recipe I found on line (everything about this project was found on line — the initial interest movie, on Netflix streaming, the juicer, from Craigslist, and the recipes. But wait, the actual fruits and vegetables came from Kroger). Okay, the Mean Green juice, it’s green. Light green, and tastes like ginger, lemon, and the other vegetables I put in it. It’s better than the spinach with lemon juice, no doubt. But still not as tasty as, say, cinnamon toast, mashed potatoes, Cheerios, oatmeal, cheese and crackers, yeah. It’s not completely easy to go to the store to get vegetables either, you have to cut past the deli cheese, the deli appetizers, the sandwich shop, and the bread displays, including cinnamon rolls.

But I’m drinking my mean green. I looking to realize my goals: weight loss, spiritual experience, greater health through vitamin saturation … we’ll see. More tomorrow.