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November 7, 2007
MR and AprilCR arrive at CR Conference
Greetings from San Antonio!
We are here! After a long but fairly uneventful flight or two, we have landed. First thing we went to the local Whole Foods to stock up on provisions for the event. Quorn tenders, tons of greens and other veggies, Nancy's organic cottage cheese (which MR has just informed me may have opioids... that explains why I appear to get high off it!) and some other treatlets, like a good couple of salsas and some hazelnut oil. We're staying at the same hotel where we stayed for Myrna's wedding a month ago, and it has a full kitchen minus oven, so we can cook our own food.
Thank heaven I am at the CR Conference, where nobody cares if you eat or not. Or what you eat. Of the twelve people sitting at a table for six, maybe nine will be eating. The others have already been fed, or don't eat restaurant food, or are doing EOD fasting, or once a day eating, or whatever. We're all weird, so we're super-accepting. It's such a relief for MR to be with people who are accepting of his eating habits. It's a relief for me too, though I have historically been much more of a "normal" eater, and have even upon occasion sunk so far into the depths of moderation to truly become a "healthy eater" but not a CR'd person.
Tonight for dinner I will make myself some sort of veggie dish with a cup of cottage cheese and a teaspoon of flax oil. I had my typical eggwhites with nonfat cheese, brewers yeast, Texas Pete and flax oil for breakfast. Then I had my salad with Quorn instead of cottage cheese for lunch on the plane because the TSA is so freaked out about liquids that we didn't think they would let the cottage cheese past security.
I had a Diet Coke with vodka on the plane. I think it is the God-given right of everyone to have a drink on any flight over two hours. I counted the calories.
We have the opening reception tonight, and then MR and I are both doing presentations tomorrow. Mine is called, "Hey, where did all the chicks come from? OR: Women and CR." I'll post the outline after I've done the presentation/discussion.
For trashy airplane reading, I bought Pattie Boyd's book, Wonderful Tonight. Yes, she's the woman for whom Eric Clapton wrote "Layla." And for whom George Harrison wrote "Something." She had a rather, uh, eventful shall we say, life. I read an excerpt in a British tabloid that had a story on CR and I was hooked on the tale of this woman who married two of the biggest rock icons of all time. She's like the Cleopatra of rock, the Teresa Heinz Kerry of 60's and 70's music. Makes me quite grateful for my currently rather calm domestic situation. And also very good not to be a heroin addict.
I downloaded "Layla" to my Ipod to go with the book. Here was my Ipod Fortune Cookie's commentary on the way to the airport this morning:
Layla, by Eric Clapton
Brand New Day, by Sting
Overture to the Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Magic, by Pilot
Phantom of the Opera, title song to the show
Rock Me, by Liz Phair
Edward and Susie and the Asparagus-phobe are in negotiations with the nurses at the older of the twins right now. I expect that any minute they will call me with the news that they're handing over a strike notice. My Fortune Ipod seems pretty clear.
Meanwhile, I'll be talking food and science and living longer and the effects of CR on libido for the next four days. The Divine Robert K, organizer of the conference, joked that any discussion of libido can last four hours, so if I alluded to that in my presentation they'd better give me a lot of time.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Posted by april at November 7, 2007 6:52 PM
Comments
Ummm...... I thought, based on looking at the CR Conference web site, that the hotel was actually catering incredibly well to the conference attendees, such that with baby scale in hand, you & MR could eat very easily from the buffet meals they were providing. Wouldn't that have been easier than shopping for and schlepping food and preparing meals? Or am I missing something here???
We are very proud that you are both presenting; DO give your readers out in bloggieland a short summary of both of your talks!
BTW, Calgary is supposed to be getting a Whole Foods in 2009! Yay! :-)
Posted by: Judith at November 7, 2007 7:11 PM
Hi Judith,
There are only two catered meals, one dinner and one lunch, and we should be fine with our baby scale at those. But for all the others, and that's quite a few, we're on our own.
There was a reception last night with veggies and a huge selection of Walden Farms dips and dressings. I tried the scampi sauce, onion dip, and bacon dip. They were all quite yummy, I thought.
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Posted by: april at November 8, 2007 3:44 AM
Oh! I foolishly thought that two meals were provided for every day of the conference. NOW I get it! Have a wonderful time, IAE. :-)
Posted by: Judith at November 8, 2007 5:53 AM
Hi April
I wish I could be there. Finances and a terror of flying keep me here. Maybe one day...
Posted by: Linda at November 8, 2007 7:18 AM
Good luck with your talk, April. Wish I were there too, but alas our just completed renovations put a big dent into our finances. Looking forward to your posts from the conference. All the best, Yvonne
Posted by: The Other Yvonne at November 8, 2007 9:40 AM
APRIL. Pattie Boyd's life is even more interesting than you know. Ever seen "A Hard Day's Night"? She was an actress at the time, 1964, and played one of the blonde stewardess types that the Fab Four chat up and make giggle in the dining car. That's how she and George met. They got married, Eric Clapton fell in love with her, he wrote Layla because he couldn't have her and identified with this Persian story "about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the man who was desperately in love with her, resulting in his madness." Anyway, it ended poorly but undramatically, sez Wikipedia: "They had this thing going on that supposedly was behind George's back. Well, George didn't really care. He said, 'You can have her.' That kind of defuses it when Eric says, 'I'm taking your wife' and he says, 'Take her.' They got married and evidently, she wasn't what he wanted after all. The hunt was better than the kill. That happens, but apparently Pattie is real happy now with some guy who's not a guitar player."
Posted by: allswellinhell at November 8, 2007 11:16 AM