Hello Cincinnati!

Our two day visit to Cincinnati welcomes us with Healy potato red pepper soup and homemade bread.  It's great to be here, Nick and I are sitting across from each other, both clicked in to our blog.  This could be dangerous because we might repeat ourselves and tell the same stories, but I just can't help it.  I love blogging. 

Welcome to the Queen City on the lovely Ohio!

We're at the Coffee Emporium in Hyde Park, which is easily the best coffee and coffee shop that I know.  I treated myself to a pumpkin pie latte, which completely ruins my cold turkey effort on fancy coffees.  Until today, I decided that joblessness requires sacrifices, one of which must be fancy $3.50 coffee drinks.  In Dubuque, we were diligent and got regular coffees and it was just fine, but for some reason, here at the Emporium, where I know it will be good no matter what, I could not help but splurge.  And it was worth it. 

How could a place so cute not be delicious. 

Being in Chicago this past weekend was great, it was reassuring to be there and to realize that this impending trip is really what we want to be doing.  I wasn't bowled over by intense nostalgia, I didn't tear up when we got on the road.  Mostly what I felt was excitement for the future, thankfulness that I got to spend as much time as I did in the city of big shoulders, and deep gratitude for the friends that were/are my family for the past 8 years.  It goes without saying that the dance community in Chicago is irreplaceable.  It's the real soul food.  I am hopeful that I can create opportunities to be connected to the dance world in Chicago and around the country.  I am hopeful that I can maintain commitment to my dance home and to participate with depth and vigor when I can!   

On our way here, Northwest Indiana treated us to a "check engine" light!  Surprise! Today we are figuring out whether or not we need to be worried.  We've consulted dads and it seems to be minor, maybe an EPA emissions thing, a fuel cap tightness issue, or an oxygen sensor thing.  It might even be tied to Ethanol- darn corn!  And yes, it all goes back to corn.  We've been listening to NPR ALOT lately and the campaign to re-invent high fructose corn syrup is driving me nuts.  The rebranding effort to change the name high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar is going on right now and there are commercials and radio PSAs running rampant.  Most of these are targeted towards moms who are endlessly worried about what they are baking with, and what they are feeding their kids.  High fructose corn syrup is a liquid alternative to sugar made from corn kernels, that much is true, and doesn't sound too painful, but the problem is that there is a chemical process, which requires a genetically engineered enzyme, that the corn sugar has to undergo in order for it to be usable.  The Atlantic summarizes the problem succinctly:

"And while the jury is still out about whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than us for sugar, whether it's metabolized differently in our bodies, for instance, there is certainly reason enough to be cautious that it just might. Harvard Medical School says research shows that high-fructose corn syrup may influence appetite hormones, for instance, and blunt feelings of fullness; it also may increase risk of heart disease. Plus, new studies last year found that samples of high-fructose corn syrup had detectable levels of mercury, from an outdated processing agent."

From the sound of it, more work remains to be done, but for me the bottom line is that we eat too much sugar anyway, if I can avoid chemical processes I will, I'd rather have sugar that comes from a plant that has not benefited from governmental subsidies, and I don't like my sugar hidden by complicated names or used as a filler in ketchup, breads, and crackers:  I'll take it straight up, brown, raw and turbinado, but that's it for now.  

We're dropping the car off at my dads trusty foreign car mechanic tonight, tomorrow we should have definitive answers, but so far it looks minor if at all.  Now we head home to meet up with Mom, who took a half day at work to hang out with us.  I love time with Mom, we are so lucky :)