The Weekend of Living Cooked-ly

Following yet another trip to Philadelphia (this time to drop roomie off for a summer-long elite rowing camp at Penn AC ), I spent a weekend at home, visiting family and attending graduation parties.

A couple of observations therefrom:

- Large family gatherings are far more enjoyable with a beer in your hand.
- My cousins, all of whom I remember being born and ripping into Christmas presents like over-caffienated wolverines, are graduating from high school. My cuz kept introducing me to all her just-graduated friends as her "cousin who teaches college" and they all look at me like I've got the secrets of the acadmic universe in my back pocket. This is one of those moments where I realize I'm really 27; and even if I don't feel like a grown-up-with-a-career, that's what I look like to the rest of the world.
- My youngest set of cousins, though, won't graduate from high school for another 12 years. I will be 40. I can only imagine how they will be introducing me at that point. Ri-to-the-diculous.

I was able to be raw the whole time in Philly, but following the All-Raw Breakdown, I wanted to eat some cooked foods, see if that had any effect on my mood/mindset. I started with some cooked veggies and then had cooked pasta for dinner Saturday night and cooked rice on Sunday. They were both good (I used raw sauces and put plenty of raw veg on both), but I could definitely tell the difference in my digestion. It didn't make me sick (the way eating real dairy products and eggs does) but it was a different kind of full. I felt full quicker and longer, but I was not really any more sated. And because the cooked food was conveniently made by my mom in large quantities, I found myself eating more and longer. But was I any less breakdown-y? Not really. Well, I was but I think it had more to do with finally getting Roomie moved out/in and being done with grading, knowing for sure I'm teaching in the fall, the sunny weather, getting to love up on my dog for a few days, the new season of True Blood etc. than it did with what I was eating.

Now I'm back in Athens. My little apartment seems huge with just me rattling around in it. I don't have the fundage to be running my AC 24/7 so I have a fan that keeps things cool and breezy. And what I find myself craving - literally ravenous at the thought of - is fresh, raw foods. After eating cooked foods for two nights, I can't even remember why I thought I needed it. I just want cold salads and smoothies, lots of green lemonade and raw iced tea. It helps that even boiling water on the stovetop jacks up the temperature in my teeny kitchen to 80 degrees or higher.

So after a two-meal lapse, I'm back to 100% raw. I don't even want to call it a lapse because that sounds like something negative and I'm trying to avoid slipping back into that mentality. It was a break. A little vacation from being all raw.

And suddenly going back to everyday life doesn't seem so daunting.