Is Meatloaf Just A Bread Shaped Hamburger?
This and other random thoughts sprouting from daily walks
For the past week I’ve been working on establishing a daily, outdoors, walking routine. I was inspired to jump back on the walking bandwagon (one I’ve sadly fallen off of after busting my backside and losing more than 100lbs over a period of 6 months a few years back - story for another time if you care to hear it) by this newsletter post called The Walking Rebellion: Restoring the Mind at Three Miles an Hour from
.So far I’ve stuck to the plan, though the early part of the week just wasn’t having the impact I normally would get from a good walk. At least in terms of clearing my head. Just too much going on at the moment and stress levels were off the charts.
However as the week progressed I found that stress slowly begin to show cracks, and while it isn’t yet gone I’ve at least been able to feel a little less wool-headed by the time I’m done.
An unexpected side effect is that I’ve found I enjoy getting back from my walk and immediately sitting down with a big glass of water and my journal as I jot down whatever thoughts ramble through my mind at that point. Of course I try to keep track a little of the weather for the walk, how I felt before/during/after, and anything of note that I saw while letting my feet lead the way.
I’m hoping to keep things going daily, in perpetuity, but I fear that with a northern Minnesota winter looming that I’ll chicken out when it’s -20°F or we’re in a nasty blizzard. For those days it might have to be the treadmill — hopefully it will still count!
I’m going to do my best to bundle up and forge on whenever possible.
I thought it might be fun to share some of the random thoughts that wander through my head as I walk, along with a handful of photos I’ve made while getting outside.
The questions probably won’t have answers and the photos are made with either my iPhone and the Mood camera app or with my Fuji X100V. I haven’t spent time editing or processing the images, they are just in camera jpegs or phone snaps with minimal processing for perspective and contrast at times.
Even so, let’s go down the rabbit hole shall we?
The question serving as the title to this letter has been popping up in my head at the most random times lately. Probably due to the section of my walks where I smell the burgers being fried at the various restaraunts I pass. It’s not only meatloaf and hamburgers either. You could add just about any ground beef based meal.
I know meatballs are a different recipe than hamburgers or meatloaf or sloppy joes, but isn’t it all kind of the same?
Just differently shaped, cooked, ground beef?
Take your ground beef and shape it like bread, it’s meatloaf. Shape it into a pancake and you have burgers. Make it a tiny ball, meatballs. Crumble it up, add some sauce and throw it on a bun, sloppy joes. Skip the bun and leave it crumbled in a pot with some extra sauce and noodles and you’ve got spaghetti.
You get the idea.
It makes me want to skip the accepted names for ground beef recipes and instead simply call it by its shape.
Meat loaf, meat cakes, meat balls, saucey loose meat on a bun, saucey loose meat and noodles.
Growing up, I was a good kid.
I’d get picked on here and there (though being over 6 feet tall and around 200lbs stopped most bullying before it started) for being too much of a goody-two-shoes because I was never found at pit parties or other indulgences of a curious high-schooler mind when it comes to drinking or partying. Same goes for girls. I didn’t even hold hands with a girl until I was 20 years old.
Yeah yeah, I can hear you laughing already.
It’s just the simple truth. By most people’s standards I was/am pretty lame.
But I’ve caught myself wondering lately if I’ll be able to notice if my own kids, as they get into their teen years through high school, have been or are experimenting with drinking, drugs, smoking, or even sex. For me I had two major deterrents.
First, it was drilled into me that I shouldn’t get into any of that as it just leads to trouble — and if I DID get caught doing it I would have had my a$$ whooped.
Second, I lived out in the country and it was a half hour or more to get anywhere. Which means I didn’t have the opportunities to just sneak away, even had I wanted to.
Third, yeah I know I said there were two main deterrents—sue me, I was frankly just a bit of a nerd and wasn’t really interested in the party scene.
But we live in a small town and are not isolated up in the woods like I was growing up… I worry I won’t pick up on the signs and can only hope I’ve taught my kids well enough to know to steer clear of it.
Many of my walks are happening after dark, which makes it a bit more difficult to use that time to also make photos. But being more difficult doesn’t mean impossible so here are a few favorites from the snaps I’ve captured this last week.
I wonder, with the ever increasing use of security cameras on front porches, how many people have quick video footage of me wandering past every evening over the last week?
More than once I’ve had motion lights pop on as I walk by on the sidewalk and each time I wonder if someone is getting an alert on their phone only to see this random guy (me) out on his nightly walk, like some sort of NPC in a video game out making the pre-programmed loop just waiting for the main character to stop and speak to them.
Though I thought I was the main character in my own story, so I don’t know where that leaves me.
Maybe we’re all in a Matrix-style simulation after all.
While the medals and swag are super cool, I just can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on a virtual walking challenge right now.
However, the folks over at The Conqueror Virtual Challenges do list all sorts of their virtual challenges on their website along with some of the basic mileage info.
So while I won’t get the awesome medals and swag as I complete the challenges, I can still walk my way towards some fun goals.
Now the question is do I tackle Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or Star Wars first?
Whichever I pick I am currently sitting at a nice tidy 10 miles over the last 6 days.
I shared a new profile photo with my friends in our Unusual Collective and they laughed and referred to my photo as a “Heart of Darkness” selfie. This made me laugh as for me it felt like a “standing tall in the storm, looking towards brighter days” style photo. Both are probably accurate.
Then, while I was watching the Jets and Texans game tonight, they shared a quote from Aaron Rodgers (as a Viking fan I just can’t root for this guy) that went something like:
“I’ve been in the darkness. You’ve got to go in there and make peace with it.”
I hate that I really like that quote because he just irritates me on the football field whenever I watch him play, haha!
I think he’s right, though.
We can’t run from it. Can’t hide from it. There’s no light bright enough to shine on that darkness and totally eliminate it. So the key is to embrace it and make peace with it.
Though now I feel like I’ve slipped into some alter ego mindset — and I’m certainly no Batman.
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