The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Answering the Phone Turned Into a Welfare Check from the Police

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    Ruth Carter

    When my phone rings and I don’t recognize the number, I assume it’s most likely a spam call for a car warranty or someone wanting to buy my condo (which is not for sale). To entertain myself, I started answering the phone with:

    House of Pain. How can we whip you?

    Photo by phit2btyd from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    I’ve been answering the call like this for over 20 years. It’s still funny, but a friend suggested I might want to change it up and answer my phone with:

    It’s done. There’s blood everywhere.

    I don’t remember which friend suggested this. I would give you credit if I did.

    Making an Appointment to Cash in my Stimulus Card

    Last month, like many people, I received a $600 stimulus payment from the government in the form of a debit card. I go to the public pool to swim multiple times a week, and I like to pay in cash, exact change, so I can get from the lobby to my lane swiftly. I regularly go to the bank to get $40 in singles. (There’s also a strip club down the block from my bank. I assume they think I’m a regular there.) When this debit card arrived, I decided I wanted all of it, in cash, in singles, so I wouldn’t have to worry about having exact change for the pool for two years.

    I didn’t know if the bank had restrictions on how many of a certain bill you could take out at a time, based on the amount they kept on hand, so I called the bank. I went through their various menus trying to speak to a human, only to be told that they were all busy and to try again later. I tried again later – same result.

    When calling didn’t work, I decided to make an appointment. That would give me the ability to tell them in advance why I was coming, so they could plan accordingly if need be. I didn’t want to show up and be told that I couldn’t get my entire $600 in singles. I made the appointment for Friday morning at 10 A.M.

    Friday Morning – 9 A.M.

    On Friday morning, I arrived at the office a little after 9 A.M. As I was setting up my laptop, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

    It’s done. There’s blood everywhere.

    There was mostly silence on the other end. I think I could hear someone breathing. I figured it was a spam call, so I put my phone down on the desk without hanging up the call, and continued on with my morning. If they’re on a call with me, they can’t annoy someone else. I hung up the call a few minutes later when I wanted to use my phone for something else.

    A little bit later, I ran the number that called me through the Google machine. It was my bank. Oopsie! I figured they were just calling to confirm my appointment.

    Friday Morning – 10 A.M.

    I arrived at my bank right at 10 A.M., rushing from the office to get there on time. This was the first time I had made an appointment with the bank and wasn’t sure what to expect. I was surprised that I had to wait for a bit before a bank associate was available to talk to me about why I was there. I mean, they knew I was coming.

    The associate essentially said, “Oh, you’re the one who wanted the singles. You can get them from the teller.” I gave the teller my photo ID, swiped my government debit card, and walked out with $600 in singles. It was a straightforward process.

    Friday Morning – 11 A.M.

    After I left the bank, I went back to my office and was getting work done when my phone rang. This time it was from “Restricted.” I answered it:

    Hello.

    Yes, sometimes I answer my phone like a normal person. I couldn’t remember if one of my parents had a restricted number.

    Photo by Tony Webster from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    It turns out it wasn’t a parental unit. It was a Phoenix Police Officer. They had been banging on the door of my condo doing a welfare check. I later learned they were so loud that my neighbor popped his head out and told them I was probably at work.

    Apparently, the bank called the police to do a welfare check on me because of “something about blood.”

    I explained to the officer how I answer the phone to unknown numbers and apologized that they were taken away from situations that warranted their attention to deal with me. I was very much alive and well in my office.

    At 1938 East Osborn Road?

    Ok, how did you know that?

    We Googled you.

    Here’s the weird part – the earlier number that called me was from the bank branch I went to less than an hour later. They saw me in the flesh, with no evidence of blood on me. They saw my ID. They had me on camera. There’s probably footage of me walking to and from, and in, my car, by myself.

    Needless to say, I’ve gone back to “House of Pain. How can we whip you?”

  • Triathlon Training in the Winter

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    Ruth Carter

    This photo is not of Phoenix, but it can get pretty cold here in the winter. Photo by NOAA Photo Library (Creative Commons License).

    It’s 201 days until Ironman Mont Tremblant 2021, just over seven months until race day. There are very few valid excuses for not doing a workout, and “It’s cold” is not one of them. Suck it up, Buttercup. Triathlon training means training in the cold.

    My triathlon coach, David Roher, has recommendations for when his athletes can switch from wearing shorts to tights. When I’m doing a long workout, I dress based on the temperature it’s expected to be at the end of the workout. Actually, I like feeling a bit cold when I start my workout. It helps me notice when my body warms up during the workout, and there is less risk of overheating.

    Swimming in the Cold

    I train at an outdoor pool. Thankfully, it’s heated. They say that the pool thermostat is set for 82 degrees. What’s not heated is the area outside the facility’s door where I wait for the place to open while standing in flip flops.

    The most uncomfortable part of winter swimming is the few minutes after I’ve stripped off my sweats and I’m sitting on the edge on the pool putting on my swim cap and googles before getting into the water. That ground is cold against my butt.

    A few weeks ago, the heater was on the fritz over the weekend, and when I arrived to swim on Monday morning, the water was only 72 degrees. That was chilly, but still nothing compared to how cold it’s likely going to be in Lake Tremblant on race. The race is expected to be “wetsuit legal” and “booties legal.”

    Biking in the Cold

    Cycling outside in the winter is when I notice the cold the most. When you ride, you generate your own wind, and then there is also a headwind for half my ride. I also prefer to ride at sunrise (the coldest part of the day), and get my workout done early in the day. The path where I ride has a lot of shadows, and so it takes a while for the ground and surrounding area to warm up.

    Coach David’s recommendation is to wear tights if the temperature is below 50 degrees. I’ve been riding up to three hours at a time, and in the cold, that means cycling tights, a long-sleeve shirt, cycling gloves (with full fingers), and heavy socks. Unlike sneakers, the tops of cycling shoes are open. Before I switched to heavy socks, my toes got so cold on these early morning rides, sometimes I couldn’t feel them.  

    Running in the Cold

    Coach David’s recommendation is to wear shorts until the temperature drops below 40 degrees. I recently modified this rule to allow tights if the weather report says it feels like it’s below 40 degrees. (I live in the desert for a reason. I’m not a fan of being cold.)

    Right now, my run workouts are less than five miles each, so even when it’s cold, I’m not outside for very long. It was a different story a few years ago when I was training for a marathon in January.

    I have access to treadmills, but I don’t like running on them. It’s so boring. I call them they human hamster wheel. I much rather run outside, even when it’s cold, windy, or raining. The same is true when it’s hot and humid in the summer.

  • The Evolution of this Vegan

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    Ruth Carter

    If you told me 20 years ago that I was going to be a devoted vegan, I probably would have laughed. And the reason would have been simple: animal products taste good.

    • Burgers are delicious.
    • Pizza is awesome.
    • Cheesecake can be so good, it’s “orgasmic.”

    I’ve never been opposed to veganism; I just didn’t think it was something I would want to do. As a student at Oregon State University, I learned a lot of the basics merely by being around people who were vegan. When “The L Word” came out, two of our friends were roommates and they got Showtime. Every Sunday, we’d all come over to watch it, and everyone had to either bring a dollar to offset their cable bill or vegan snack.

    Omnivore to Vegetarian

    I love documentaries, and a few years ago, I started watching films about food including, Food Inc., and it churned my stomach to see how factory farming works in the United States. The conditions in which these animals are raised and killed are despicable. I agree with the saying that if more people knew how factory farm animals lived and died, they couldn’t eat them.

    After seeing a number of these films, I didn’t feel comfortable eating meat, knowing what I knew about how farm animals went from birth to packages of meat in the store. I thought fish didn’t have feelings, so I decided it was ok to still eat them. When I learned that that wasn’t true, I gave up fish.

    Going Vegan

    It was actually Dog by Dog, documentary movie about dog breeding that made me think, “If I’m not ok with any animal suffering, then I need to give up dairy and eggs.” I was deluding myself into thinking it was ok to eat these because an animal didn’t die for my meal, but often still live horrible lives. If I wanted to have integrity around this issue, then I needed to be vegan. One thing that I can do is vote with my wallet and lessen the demand for animal products.

    I let myself finish the animal products I had in my house, and started looking for vegan replacements. I had already switched out the meat in my diet for more grains and legumes. I replaced the half and half in my coffee with vanilla almond milk. I bought vegan butter. I was grateful to see that my favorite soup base also has vegan varieties. I bought vegan cookbooks and searched the internet for new recipes.  

    I am sensitive to soy, so I eat mostly low soy and soy-free products. Sometimes that limits my options for vegan products, but that’s something I mostly encounter when I’m looking into meat-replacement products, which is something I rarely do. The only meat substitute I buy with any regularity is Trader Joe’s Hi-Protein Veggie Burger patties, which are made with pea protein.  

    This was the day I knew I never wanted to eat a beef burger again.

    Caveats and Exceptions

    I used to have caveats or make exceptions to being vegan. Early on in my journey towards veganism, I use to eat animal products if they were from a certified humane source. My justification was that these animals were well-treated and had a good life before they became my lunch. That worked for my for a while, until I spent a day volunteering at Aimee’s Farm Animal Sanctuary, cuddling Adorabull, a newborn calf who was brought to the farm after being abandoned in a ditch. He was sick little guy, and as I stroked his head, I knew I never wanted a beef burger again.

    Apparently, others who have visited the farm sanctuary have come away with similar thoughts about changing their diets. Aimee doesn’t tell anyone who visits what they should or shouldn’t eat. Merely being with the animals inspires some people to re-think what they eat.

    I also used to have an exception when I traveled and I would shift to vegetarianism if it wasn’t convenient to be vegan. I don’t give myself that out anymore. When I go to a restaurant, if there isn’t a vegan option, I look at the menu as a list of ingredients and make my own meal or I end up ordering a bunch of sides instead of an entrée. Thankfully it’s become easier to find all-vegan restaurants or restaurants with plenty of vegan options.

    Committing to Full Veganism

    It’s actually not hard to be vegan. I usually have oatmeal for breakfast and add in vanilla protein powder, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sliced banana. For lunch and dinner, a common meal for me is rice, beans, and a vegetable or I meal prep soup over the weekend. I’m on a lentil soup kick right now. Between meals I like to have fruit, dried fruit, veggie sticks, almonds, pretzels, and/or chips. It’s rare if I’m craving something that there isn’t a vegan option or something that is “close enough.”

    Being vegan has been great for helping me avoid a lot of junk food. It’s easy to say no to things like cookies in the office, or when I get pizza now, it’s just crust, sauce, and veggies, which is much healthier than what I used to order.

    About a year ago, I saw this video by Merle O’Neal talking about why she went vegan, and her words embody a lot of why I went vegan, more than what I could put in a post.