Austin, TX

So when my brother-in-law learnt that we were about to get to Austin, TX, he got excited on our behalf.  So much music!  In seconds he identified two must-see concerts in the upcoming days:  Herbie Hancock and Tyler Childers.  Well, the first was sold-out, and after a quick visit to YouTube we discovered that the second was unlikely to be to our taste.   So, what to do?  A quick google revealed an overwhelming amount and number of concerts at an overwhelming variety of venues ranging from large formal concert halls to bars and coffee shops.  In the end we attended a single concert, by a Texas Swing Band at the cafe attached to a high-end grocery store in one of Austin's many sprawling suburbs.  

Apparently this band plays the cafe every second Friday, and as you can see, there is a group of regulars who attend to dance the early evening away.   It wasn't the best music I've ever heard, but it was charming that a random supermarket cafe features live bands, and that pickup bands like this one go on for dozens of years having fun playing local gigs for appreciative audiences.  I guess that's Austin.

The other really charming thing we found in Austin was also something we discovered by chance.  In an attempt to find a nice inexpensive meal, we decided to try a high-end Italian food truck.  When we arrived, we realized that instead we'd found ourselves an experience.  A local independent theatre company has kitted out the treed courtyard of their building with picnic tables and a food truck, and serve the masses great food and fancy drinks outdoors in the warm dry evenings.  You line up for food, you line up for drinks, but the atmosphere is pleasant and relaxing, and it all made for a very nice evening out.

Despite the expression on these people's faces, the atmosphere was really pleasant!

But other than these two things, I'm afraid we didn't find a lot to like about Austin, sadly.  It didn't help that we got caught in a hail storm almost as soon as we arrived.  And when I say hail storm, I mean we were pelted by golf-ball sized chunks of ice on an expressway.

Photo taken after we'd reached safety, about half-an-hour after the storm ended. The hailstones have melted some and are smaller than the ones that hit our car.

We were too stressed to get a video of the largest hailstones.

Our car was damaged. 

The storm was not necessarily Austin's fault, admittedly, but it definitely set the tone.  As did our visitor's impression of the city.  

Yes, our windshield definitely needs replacing.  We have an appointment booked.

Going anywhere at all involves getting on a freeway and travelling 20-40 minutes in heavy traffic through the most intricate assortment of exits, entrances, merges, flyovers, and highway splits that I can readily imagine.  How do people live like this?  Why would they want to?  Getting places was complicated and stressful. I can't imagine living here.

Texas, 2024

 Why Texas?  Well, the total eclipse of the sun, of course.  Which we did see, despite the weather.  (Harvey summarized our Eclipse Day well in this photo album, so I don't feel the need to tell you about that.  Click on the first image to show it full size, then click the i icon to display the caption.)

Otherwise, I've never felt a strong desire to visit Texas.  But here we are.  So what have we found? What's interested me so far?  What's surprised me?

One thing of note is that every small town of any antiquity seems to have an overwhelmingly large central courthouse.  

Like this one in Meridian Texas (population 1,415). 

Or this one in Hillsboro Texas (population 8,548)

Or even this one in Austin (population 974,447).

 Are courthouses really that necessary?  Or important? Is crime in Texas so rampant and significant?  For comparison, there isn't a single public building that impressive and central in Wakaw Saskatchewan (population 985 or 9,850 in US terms). 

Harvey pointed out that the courthouse in each town might originally have been constructed as a symbol of imperial colonial power -- which makes sense when you realize that Texas was the literal Wild West frontier at the time that the older courthouses were constructed.  (We viewed the eclipse from Hico, Texas, home of the Billy the Kid museum and neighbour to Hamilton Texas, the location of Billy the Kid's grave.)  So perhaps the courthouse looms large in the Texas imagination because the courthouse symbolizes law and order and the creation of the state. It would make a certain amount of sense.

But speaking of colonial power, another thing that's really struck me is the way that Texas history is discussed in public places.  Canada has a lot to answer for and a long way to go, but at least we've begun the process of decolonializing our public history.  Here every insignificant settler and trader is somehow notable, but even the names of the local First Nations are not deemed to be important -- except very occasionally when they are mentioned in the context of having been "savage enemies" that colonial heroes needed to defend themselves from.  I haven't seen a single thing that acknowledges these peoples' continuing presence, or that describes places, things, or historical events from the perspective of the First Peoples whose lands these have always been.  

It reminds me of how history was told in my childhood.

To end on a high note, the most unexpected and beautiful thing that we've encountered are the Texas spring wildflowers.  The department of highways plants them on roadsides, but they also grow in ditches and pastures and parks.  They're everywhere! They're gorgeous.  They're also hard to capture in photos, especially at their most impressive, when they cover large areas with blooms.  But here are a few examples. 

Last post: returning to Canada

It feels like I should write one last entry to wrap up the story of My Trip to Mexico.  It's a little late given that we returned to Canada over a week ago, but I spent the last week of our trip sick and didn't feel great the first few days we were back either.

So, where to start.  Maybe I'll start with the least important thing: the blog name.  Did I have better luck finding black tea in Mexico on this trip?  

Resoundingly, no.  In fact, even though I brought tea along with me again, this time I rarely drank it.  Instead I went cold turkey on caffeine.  I didn't even miss it.  So much for being physically addicted.

How did the trip go, in general?  

As always, we enjoyed Mexico.  The public monuments, the public art, the graffiti, the museums, the history, the culture.  The need for self-reliance due to the lack of safety standards for streets, buildings, food! Crazy conventions like dirt piled on the edge of an undercut road to warn you away from the edge.

The controlled anarchy of driving: road rules roughly followed, as convenient, and as accommodated by other drivers. Friendly and helpful Mexicans: helping us get to Pluma Hidalgo, chatting with us about Mexico and Canada, giving us advice on where to go birding or where to catch a collectivo.  

There were downsides:

• Between the time I got food poisoning, a migraine, and the bad cold I caught just as we were leaving Oaxaca City, I spent more than 20% of our trip sick.  Usually not so sick that I was stuck in bed, but "After-being-out-for-half-a-day-I-went-to-bed-at-6:30pm-and-slept-through-to-morning" sick.  Annoying. 
• Cooking at our place didn't go as expected, and there were only a couple of decent (and decently-priced) restaurants close to our apartment.  I really enjoyed the food here the last time we visited, but was less enthusiastic this time.
• Oaxaca City was busier, more touristy, and more expensive than I remember it being the last time I visited.  I know, I know.  I'm a tourist.  I stayed in an AirBnB.  I frequented tourist destinations!  But the cool local cafe with good lunches and loose-leaf tea I remembered from last time has become a coffee chain. The Oaxaca Lending Library has a lot more transient members and feels less like a community  There's been more development: the house we stayed in 2011/2012 is now in the suburb of San Felipe del Agua instead of being on the edge of town.  And on average things cost about twice what they did the last time we visited: a cab ride to Monte Alban was 200 pesos instead of 90 pesos, a cheap lunchtime comida corrida cost 85 pesos instead of 35-50 pesos (if you can find one:  they've almost vanished from the centre), local buses cost 8 pesos instead of 5.5.  

There were also upsides: 

• We'd never been to Xalapa in the state of Veracruz before, and we loved it. The historic centre of the city is pretty, and the streets and buildings throughout the city are clean, well-maintained, and attractive.  It has several great city parks with lots of nature: Parque Ecológico Macuiltépetl, Parque Natura, Parque El Haya. There are lots of good restaurants, and at least one great museum.  It's a university town, and has the vibrancy that you'd expect of a place with lots of students.  There was even a big book fair in the central plaza while we were there! In general it's definitely a place where people live rather than a place that people visit, but it's a nice place.  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It was great having birding as a main focus: it gave us a really different perspective on the places we visited.  It meant we met different people too.  In particular, it was great meeting and birding with Edgar Del Valle, the birding guide we found in Oaxaca.
  
  
  

And some things were just different.  We drove to Oaxaca the last time we visited.  This time we flew and took public transportation.  In some ways this was frustrating, especially given that a lot of what we wanted to do was bird-watching and when you're bird-watching, you generally want to travel to rural locations early in the morning. On the other hand, it was fun to improvise our way to and from various destinations, and we definitely met more Mexicans than we did on our previous trip and heard some interesting stories (like the life story of the cab driver who took us to Yagul, who spoke excellent English, Zapotec, Spanish, and another indigenous language).

All in all, it was a great trip.  In particular I really appreciated that we were able to travel for six weeks, which gave us time and space to spend time in new places, explore Oaxaca, and experience life in Mexico in a way that you just can't do if you're staying in a hotel for only a few days.  

Birdwatching part 3: why?

 A relative asked me once "So, is bird-watching basically Pokemon?"  Which I interpreted to mean "Is birdwatching basically just a game of trying to find as many new and exotic birds as you can?"

At the time, I dismissed her characterization, and came up with all sorts of rationales why bird-watching is more and different than a "hunt" game.  But her question made me think. Especially in Mexico, I've spent so much time getting excited about seeing birds for the first time.   Is it really Pokemon after all?

Honestly, there's an element of that.  There are birders who are "listers", who will make long trips to see that single species of bird that they need to complete their lists.  In Huatulco, we went on a guided birding expedition with another couple, both professional biologists, who at least initially seemed more interested in seeing a single individual bird of a type that they hadn't encountered before than enjoying all of the other exotic and interesting birds that surrounded us. And Harvey and I are not immune to the call of an unfamiliar flash of feathers either:  we were thrilled to see our first trogon, parakeet, and squirrel cuckoo. We loved seeing so many new warblers.

But birding is more than that, even for us.  We are still birding in Vancouver, 10 years after we began, and we don't even spend much time chasing after rarities.

So what is the attraction? 

For me, I think the biggest reason is that it forces me to pay attention.  

The more attention I pay to the world around me, the more birds I see and hear.  There were birds in the centre of Mexico City, a huge intimidating conglomeration of buildings, concrete, and people.  There are birds in my local parks.  There are birds at the beach, on the water, in my yard.  If I don't stop and pay attention, I don't even notice that they're there.

When I see birds, I try to identify them.  Why?  After all, it can feel kind of awkward and pointless to turn from your binoculars to your phone (or book). And while you're doing so you're obviously not looking at birds. 

One reason:  memory.  By the end of a couple of hours of birding, it's easy to forget some of the birds that you've seen.  Keeping a record (in eBird, or on paper, or even just in your head) helps remind you of the numbers and diversity of bird life around you, and it's way easier to keep a record of bird names "yellow-rumped warbler" or "vermillion flycatcher" than it is to remember "those little stripy ones with yellow patches" or "the brilliant red bird"!  Identifying birds is the only real way to keep track.

Second reason: the more attention I pay to the birds I see, the more species of birds I find and recognize.

How does this work?  Well, say you're in Mexico and see a brilliant red bird. You might think that identifying it will be easy.  But when you turn to your reference material you'll discover that there is more than one option.

Vermillion flycatcher compared to a Scarlet Tanager

Other tanagers

Things get even more complicated when you spot a little yellow-and-black bird.

Townsend's Warbler

Note the arrow and the second dot.  There are a bunch more options not shown here.

This is the point when you either give up on birdwatching, or you get hooked.  

To identify birds you need to pay close attention to to details of the bird itself (size, shape, leg colour, bill shape, markings, habitat, behaviour, songs) and know the location (country, state, province, habitat). 

Paying attention to all of those things really helps you notice and appreciate both where you are and what you're seeing -- including the interesting and amazing individual birds who are going about their days eating, singing, flying, hopping, mating, hiding.

I'm an intermediate birder: I know and have seen most of the birds that spend time in and around my home over the course of a year.  More advanced birders visit the same locations day after day, season after season, year after year.  They develop an intimate knowledge of a particular place, its bird life, and how those things change over time. I've met people who know how rufous hummingbird populations in Vancouver have changed over time, or know which week you can expect to see shorebirds, and who keep lists of the birds that they see every year in a particular location.  

Finding a familiar bird is gratifying and fun.  Finding a "new" bird is exciting: you're seeing something novel, you're developing your skills and knowledge. You're learning about a new place. 

The most rewarding part of our trip was definitely the birdwatching.  We've spotted so many birds that we'd never seen before! It made visiting places we've been before, like Oaxaca, new.  It took us places where we wouldn't have gone otherwise and showed us things that we wouldn't otherwise have known -- like the early-morning running culture in Parque Macuiltépec in Xalapa:

Note the runner ahead of Harvey (6:15 am)

 or the damage from Hurricane Agatha in Oaxaca state.

A relatively minor road undercut.  We were driven over other corners where the undercut approached 50%. Note the dirt pile on the edge to warn you away from driving there.

In other words, birdwatching during our vacation in Mexico took us places we wouldn't otherwise have gone, and helped us see things we wouldn't otherwise have seen.  Birding in Mexico helped us pay attention to where we were.

Roman Houses

Spanish colonial-style houses are Roman houses!  

Traditionally Roman houses featured a suite of rooms surrounding a central courtyard. The courtyard typically contained a garden and fountain. Spanish colonial houses are just the same.  

In one way this isn't surprising:  Spain was a Roman colony after all.  On the other hand, it's been more than 1500 years since the Roman empire fell.  When Oaxaca was founded, it had already been 1000 years. 

Here are a couple of photos of the house where we lived in Oaxaca. 

Our two-room suite was behind the door to the left, on the second courtyard at the back of the house.

The main courtyard

Of course, it might just be that this house design just works well for warm climates. The ancient Zapotecs appear to have independently invented the same design.  

Here are the ruins of two palaces from the ruins of Atzompa, showing residences that have rooms surrounding a central courtyard.

Transportation

There are a lot of people who don’t have cars of their own in Mexico, who still need to get to and from work, or school, or to the next town over for a doctor’s appointment or to transport a bag of carrots to market, or to visit family….all of the reasons that people need to travel.  

That means that there are lots of different ways to get around, at various levels of price and convenience.

Within a town:

• In smaller towns, or in some suburbs of larger cities, tuktuks are common.  A tuktuk is otherwise known as a moto-taxi:  a motorcycle appended to a 2-3 person cabin.  Tuktuks often help folks up hills, and rarely travel further than about 2 km.  Fares range from 10 pesos to 50 pesos, depending on the distance and the remoteness of the destination. (If the driver is unlikely to get a passenger on the way back, you may pay more).

Photo stolen from the "Mototaxis for sale" Facebook page because I wasn't clever enough to take my own picture.

Within a city:

• Public buses, running on fixed routes, just like in Canada.  Price: In Oaxaca, 8 pesos/person. (~0.60 )

• Private taxi:  variable cost, depending both on the distance travelled and the specific taxi driver.  In Oaxaca, the cost of a ride within the city that would take 20-30 minutes to walk averaged 60 pesos ($4), but could be anywhere from 45 pesos to 70 pesos ($3-$4.70). The standard rate for ride from the centro to the ruins at Monte Alban was 200 pesos ($13) when we arrived in November, and had risen to 250 pesos ($17) a few weeks later.

Between cities in the central valley of Oaxaca and to major centres in the Sierra Norte:

• Intercity bus: Some popular routes have frequent scheduled bus service. For example, a second class bus (like a Greyhound) runs between Oaxaca and Mitla every half hour or so, and costs about the same as a collectivo.  (40 pesos or $2.70)

• Bus: These buses are something between a city bus and an intercity bus in comfort.  They run on a fixed route, but not necessarily to a fixed schedule. They seem to shuttle back and forth.  Cost per person is fixed, irrespective of how far you ride.  For example, Oaxaca to Tlacalula (1 hour away) was 22 pesos/person

• Collectivos: shared taxis that run on a set route, but not at a set time.  For shorter routes the collectivos basically shuttle back and forth, leaving whenever they are fullish, and stopping to pick up additional passengers if there’s room.  For longer routes, they leave from a fixed point and leave only when full. Cost: Oaxaca to Mitla (1.5 hours away): 40 pesos per person.

• Taxi: You can engage a private taxi.  Apparently the going rate is 200 pesos an hour, although I suspect that tourists pay up to twice as much.

Between cities that are further apart:

• 1st class buses: air conditioned, cushioned seats, washrooms, and “in flight” entertainment.  On the Super First Class buses, they don’t even blare the audio into the bus at large:  you can listen on headphones if you’re interested! They run on a fixed schedule. Depending on the route and the distance, they may run anywhere from once a day to once an hour.  Seats are reserved, and you can only board at a station.

• 2nd class buses:  more run-down versions of the 1st class buses, may not have air conditioning.  We didn’t end up taking any second class buses so I’m not sure of the details.

• Vans: The most economical and fastest way to travel between Oaxaca City and the coast is by 10-15 seat multi-passenger van. Depending on the route and the operator, they run somewhere between every ½ hour and every 2 hours. They leave from a fixed station, and stop at fixed points in major centers in-between.  You can also flag them down by the side of the road.

• Collectivos: shared taxis, that are generally only available between towns that are up to about 2 hours apart.  Fare is fixed, depending on the destination, but tends to be 40 or 50 pesos per person. 

• Taxi: You can negotiate a private taxi ride between cities. Cost is whatever the market will bear.  

• Camioneta:  Haven’t taken these, but we’ve seen them on the roads.  Seem to run only in rural areas.  Basically, they’re a pickup truck.  Most commonly the pickup has standing room in the back (with a metal cage around the box that you hang on to as the truck moves), but may instead have a tarp covering and bench seats in the back, or cargo space  in the box and seating in a king cab in front.

Camioneta with cargo in back and a king cab for passengers

All of this means that if you’re a bit brave, you can head to a random destination with reasonable certainty that you’ll be able to get there and get back again with reasonable efficiency.

For example, we visited the ruins of Yagul using a combination of bus, private taxi, and collectivo.  

• We started by taking a private taxi to the place where collectivos leave for Mitla (the town about 20 minutes past our destination).   Cost: 70 pesos

• We stood around waiting for a Mitla collectivo for about 15 minutes.  When one didn’t show up, we decided to take a bus to Tlacolula, which is a few km short of our destination.  Cost: 22 pesos each.

• We waved down a taxi in Tlacolula.  The driver asked for the outrageous sum of 100 pesos ($7) for the 4 km drive because we were gringos going to a tourist site.  We sighed and paid instead of getting out of the cab in a huff.

• We spent a few hours visiting the ruins and birding, walking the 1.5 km back to the highway. 

• Oops!  We tried waving down a collectivo, but every one that passed us was full.  About 10 of them in a row! Are we going to have to walk the 2.5 km back to Tlacolula along a busy highway with no shoulder???  Whew!  Here’s one with two seats empty!  We can get a ride all the way back to Oaxaca city after all. Total wait time:  7 minutes.  Cost:  40 pesos each.

Total cost of transportation for the day:  294 pesos, or $19.60.  Total planning: zero.  Total travel time: 2.5 hours.  Total time waiting for transportation: 23 minutes  (would have been about 10 minutes less if we’d taken the earlier bus to Tlacolula instead of continuing to wait for a collectivo Mitla on our way out).

Second example:  travelling from San Jose del Pacifico to Pluma Hidalgo.  

Google maps stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the existence of the town of San Jose del Pacifico, but Cabanas La Cumbre are situated there.

These are two towns in the mountains between Oaxaca City and the Pacific Coast, about 2.5 hours apart, in a region that is far less populated than the central valleys of Oaxaca.  There are regularly scheduled vans between San Jose and Pochutla, a large town on the more major of the two routes to the coast (the 175).  We were led to believe that there was an hourly van to Pluma Hidalgo too, but when we asked in San Jose we were greeted with something between incomprehension and a wince.  As in “You want to go to Pluma Hidalgo from here?”

The driver of one of the vans headed to Pochutla suggested that we ride with him as far as La Copalita, at the crossroads where the road to Pluma Hidalgo branches off.  “Is there transportation from La Copalita to Pluma?”  answer <shrug> “it’s easier when you’re closer”.  Okay, challenge accepted.  We travel 1.5 hours down the windiest highway I’ve ever been on in my life to a cross roads in the middle of nowhere. The van drops us off with our luggage.  

Hopeful sign:  there are other people waiting.  Unhopeful sign:  when we say we’re headed to Pluma Hidalgo, they answer “you just missed it!”  Ooops.  Seeing our faces fall, one fellow says “it will be about 20 minutes  [to the next one]”.   He directs us to a bus shelter across the way, where we wait. And wait. For about 40 minutes. 

Waiting for a ride to Pluma (or Godot?)

Various camionetas headed towards nearby destinations stop and pick up passengers and cargo. No cabs or collectivos of any description pass. On the bright side, 3 vans headed to Oaxaca and 1 van to Pochutla pass on the main highway, so if worst comes to worst we can probably abort and get somewhere tonight!  Finally, a decrepit car pulls up and some passengers get out.  “This is it” says our helpful friend, who’s still waiting for his ride.

That car in the shadows is our ride away from the crossroads.

We get in the unmarked car/informal taxi, and head towards Pluma Hidalgo.  Cost: 200 pesos ($14) Again, a total ripoff by local standards, but a) we’re tourists and b) we don’t seem to have a lot of options.  Thirty minutes or so later, we arrive at our destination.  Safely, despite the driver.  And despite the shakedown when we arrive: “no, it’s 300 pesos!”  “But you said 200 pesos.”  “but you didn’t go to the hotel I suggested.”  <Harvey glowers>  “Okay, 250 pesos”.  Grimace, and pay, because it's $3.50 and we just want to be rid of him.

Cooking

 When we chose a place to stay in Oaxaca, we had several criteria:

• Close to the centre. Last time we were in Oaxaca we stayed in a suburb, and getting to and from the centre was a bit of a pain.
• A bedroom separate from the living area. Sometimes one of us has insomnia, or wants to take a nap mid-day. It's much easier to have one person awake and one asleep if you have a bedroom door.
• A decent kitchen, with a fridge bigger than a bar fridge. We're here for a month, and we wanted to be able to cook meals.

Those criteria eliminated a bunch of places, but we found a few. We picked the one that looked nicest and here we've been, living in Oaxaca, eating out for almost every meal.

What went wrong?  Technically nothing.  We eat almost every breakfast at home, and have cooked a few simple meals here, including this one.  

But this is the most elaborate meal that we've made, and we've only done it once.  

Why?

Cooking here is So Much Work.

It starts with grocery shopping.  We happen to have selected a place that doesn't have any kind of food store close by.  The closest market (La Noria) is about a 10-15 minute walk away, and is deeply uninspiring in terms of the selection of food that's available.  Mercado La Merced (15 minutes) is somewhat better, and we've bought bananas, oats, milk, and a few vegetables there.  Mercado Sanchez Pascuas is much better, and makes me hungry every time I visit.  But it's all the way across the centro, a 25 minute walk away.  It's an expedition.  Worse, it's not really possible to stock up, because veggies seem to have a really short shelf life here.  One carrot went from beautiful to shrivelled in only 3 days, when at home carrots last for weeks in the crisper.

Next, there's prep.  You have to worry about food safety, even and especially with vegetables, so the first step in cooking is to disinfect your vegetables.  The normal way that Mexicans do this is with a product called Microdyn.  

Microdyn is an iodine solution that you can use to purify water or to disinfect vegetables.  

Eight drops in a litre of water, and then soak for 15 minutes.  

After that's done, prep the ingredients.  Unfortunately, in common with most furnished rental places, the knives are crappy.  We also have a tiny cutting board, and only 3 plates, 3 small bowls, two non-stick pots, and a very small non-stick frying pan.  Simply juggling ingredients while you're doing prep is a bit of a challenge, particularly because you want to make an effort to keep the prepped food 'clean', and you can't clean a dish with tap water and then reuse it during the prep process because the tap water isn't clean.

Cooking. Our two burner stove is the slowest stove I've every used. It takes forever to heat up, has only 3 heat settings, and reacts very slowly to changes.  

It took me almost 2 hours to cook the small pot of beans we used to make the supper pictured above.  What's worse, that was two hours that I spent moving the pot off and on the burner every 5 minutes because I couldn't figure out how to make the burner 'simmer'.

Finally, food!  Yum!  You eat.  

Then you need to do dishes, preferably immediately.  There are regularly small ants in the kitchen.  We haven't seen any cockroaches, but this is the tropics and it wouldn't be at all surprising if they were around. In fact, if you aren't careful with dirty dishes and food scraps, I'm positive that they'll make an appearance. 

Step 1: boil water.  Yup, there's hot water for the shower, but not for the kitchen sink.  You need to heat water on the stove to do dishes, and don't forget you have only 2 pots so you might have to clean one of them before you can use it to heat water for the rest of the dishes.

Step 2: do dishes.  

Step 3: do a forensic-level cleaning of all surfaces, the sink, and the strainer to eliminate any tiny food scraps that might feed bugs.

Step 4: take any food-related garbage out to the bins or put it in the fridge, which we use as a secure "food storage box" against bugs.

Step 5: rest while looking at Google reviews of nearby restaurants.

Yeah, it's not impossible to cook.  But it feels like a significant effort, especially on days when you're mostly focused on Doing Stuff, because after all, the reason you're here in the first place is to Do Stuff.