That's the Way the Vegan Cookie Crumbles...

My math skills never come into question; mainly because they're unquestionably bad. I'm no mathematician (though, in the field of chaos theory, as explained by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, I could probably hold my own, at least long enough to know I don't know nearly as much as I should before trying to domesticate dinosaurs). Numbers appear before my eyes like indecipherable gilded tomes of ancient alien hieroglyphs based in a language of communication long forgotten by things resembling living organisms. So, this goes a long way towards saying when my American mind's eye is presented with the task of converting things into that blessed metric system (not joking: love the metric system, hate the clunky imperial system, that I'm all too familiar with, imposed on people in the States), it's an outlandish sitcom situation ready to unfurl like a banner of shame in the international idiot parade, for which my proudly pink & purple paper-mȃché plastered float may not place with the first prize contenders, but spectators, who eagerly line the streets to gawk at such silly sights, are surely going to notice it pass by. 


I set out yesterday with a recipe not yet refined for the international crowds in an attempt to make vegan cookies with only mild success... 

First up, for whatever reason, I can't find cherries here in Japan. So I immediately switched the recipe to cranberries, and grabbed some raisons as a backup. Next came the juggling act of thirds and quarter cups amongst milliliter measuring implements in front of me, which left me in a perpetual state of consternation, never knowing which end of the knives to catch on the downward arc. I'm pretty sure it was in this crucial portion of the recipe that the most mistakes were made. Then came Fahrenheit to Celsius settings which the  電子レンジ (microwave oven. Yep, microwaving cookies...it's the way of the future) didn't have an exact setting for in the converted temperature, so I went with something in, or around, the accurate vicinity. When the cookies weren't done after 10 minutes, I knew something was definitely wrong. The color of these suckers was even off. I had failed in following through on a foolproof recipe for vegan cookie goodness. The taste remained OK, because it's hard to make something that requires little more than sugar and your pick of dried fruit taste bad, but the texture was completely off. These things have never failed me before, but maybe, I'm looking at it from the wrong perspective, and I, as a product of an inferior education system, actually failed them. Luckily there are a lot of sweet-teeth in this household, so no cookie truly ever goes unwanted for very long.  

Aside from the cookie crumbling calamity, today's run went smoothly, for once. I pulled in a 5km (3 mile) loop along the river, then walked an additional 2.5km (1.5-ish miles) just because I felt up for it. There was one point when a dog looked like it about to bark at me, but turned out it just had to sneeze. My spirit still craves the long distance run, but I can't jeopardize my recovery by hitting the pavement too quickly, or for too long, so I bide my time as best I can. I'm refining a new personal "training" schedule for further recovery running which utilizes more cross training days throughout the week. I'm most likely not going to get a chance to run that 10km around the Imperial Palace in May, so my new focus is to just slowly sneak around town like an elderly ninja until I get my weekly miles back to a respectable 20-ish (32km). I'm sure as the weather gets warmer, my knee gets better, and the radiation levels settle down a bit, I'll be in good shape to start considering some Ozu-esque Late Spring/Early Summer distance races. Until then, it's slow going, lest my knee finally defeats me like the cookie recipe nearly did. Be well all...