Some unspecified number of quick takes (are those still a thing?)

1. I am making chia pudding for the first time and the resemblance to frog spawn is startling. Black speckles surrounded by islets of goo? Exactly like the jars I used to keep on my dresser as a 12yo. But it will allegedly give me the strength of an Aztec warrior. I'll report back tomorrow.
2. Tomorrow morning the 10K training group is running exactly the route that we usually did in my first running group, 5 years ago. It's a little funny: just driving past the park where we'll be starting gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. I have such fond memories of running with that group during that summer. The prospect of running the same route makes me feel even warmer and fuzzier. Especially if I can look forward to doing it with the strength of an Aztec warrior!
3. I felt like a bit of a shill after I wrote that post last night. There's a running blog I stopped reading because of the relentless parade of sponsored posts, and I felt cautious about tiptoeing in that direction, even to say "They sent me a free book and it's an above-average book." Then tonight Elwood and I were talking about who was going to cook what for dinner and he mentioned that he had brought home a pork loin. "Oh!" I said, my Friday fatigue evaporating. "I will cook it in the Instant Pot! There's a pork loin recipe in my book!" Pork loin with caramelized onions and more balsamic vinegar than seemed prudent: scrumptious. Kids snarfed it down. Really, though, you could put caramelized onions in balsamic vinegar on top of an alarm clock and I would probably eat it. Caramelized onions are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
4. This recipe called for Dijon mustard, which led to a discussion between Elwood and me about what Dijon mustard actually is. I used to think that mustard was the worst flavor in the whole world. THE. WORST. Then I realized that it wasn't about the mustard. I'm okay with mustard by itself, and I'm okay with turmeric by itself. But American ballpark mustard combines them to create a flavor that I do not put in my mouth at any time for any reason. We had spicy brown mustard in the fridge, but it also contains turmeric. I know I am the person who just talked about eating alarm clocks cheerfully, but that stuff was not going in my dinner. 
5. I was an ultra-fussy kid but I like to think I've become less fussy as a grownup. Dill? No. Ballpark mustard? No. Most of my other childhood food prejudices I have managed to overcome.
6. Huh, that was kind of a Yoda-esque sentence. Or maybe a hymnal sentence. We keep singing All In All as our meditation hymn: "Lord to give up I'd be a fool." Maybe there's an album out there somewhere, full of lines like that one. Yoda Worships. Yoda Before The Throne. Something like that.
7. I am still thinking about tastes. In my early 20s in a Thai restaurant I had an experience like the spanakopita moment, in which an herb in my food tasted so painfully awful that I couldn't finish the meal. Later, when I was 25, I encountered the same herb in an Indian meal. I asked our hostess what it was. (Politely. I thought about saying, "Why does this taste like dirt and penance?" but my mama did teach me some manners.) She gave me a name; it started with ch-. What was it, though? I have no idea.