It's a woman's perogative to change her mind

Conversations from the Camp:

1.
Him: You're a whiner and complainer...(it's in a tune, like a...well, I'm tone-deaf. But it's a song, consisting of that phrase.)

Me (given the fact I've been complaining for 24 hours): Then why'd ya marry me? Huh? Huh?

Him: You'll recall, my sweet, that I began singing that song to you on our honeymoon.

Me: Sucker.

2.

Me, sitting astride a log that I'm peeling the dirty bark off so that it will not blunt K.'s chainsaw, hysterically crying: I want a home! A home! I want a shower, and a room with a door!

K.: We're building a cabin. It's for 30 days. Cityslicker.

Me: I'm not a cityslicker! I don't mind working! I'm a good worker! But I (bursting into fresh sobs) I don't like living under a tarp in the woods! That doesn't make me a cityslicker!

K., considering for a moment: That's true, isn't it.


3.

Me: I hate living outside.

K.: I know. You'll never have to do it again.

Me, thinking to myself: Victory?



So, you've probably gathered that the euphoria has worn off. It's ok. At the end of this damn, wretched, dirt-and-bug-filled month, we'll have a cabin, and I love cabins. I love woodstoves. I love the trees. I am a little afraid to go to the outhouse by myself after dark, but who wouldn't be?

That being said, the cabin is coming along. Mostly, we've spent this week milling logs. Now, if you're like I was before this adventure, milling logs means nothing to you. Here's what those two words mean: Finding a tree. Cutting it down. Cutting all extra branches off of them and leaving them to rot in the woods, a fact that fills my psycho-neat-freakness with HORROR. Hauling said log to cabin site, where you use a peavey (amazing miraculous tool) to heave the log that you can't budge by pushing on it up onto risers. The bark is filled with mud from being dragged, so I “skin” it with a drawknife. K. then sets up a very long board on top of the log, and cuts the length of the log 3 times, a process which takes a minimum of 30 minutes, not including the inevitable chainsaw repairs.

We need over 80 of these.

But as K. says, we are not the kind of family who buys pre-cut logs, or even a darling little antique cabin that was crafted with handtools (I tried this, since we have the tools. My dear Lord, those pioneers were made of IRON).


But here we are, still married, still talking to each other. And only 10 days in :)

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Written Saturday morning. And after 9 hours of work on the cabin, some visible progress, and that thorough venting of my feelings, I am once again quite chipper.

A woman's perogative.

P.S. I have tried for half-an-hour to post pictures. It cannot be done this evening. Very sorry.

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Sunday morning: trying again!

1. the site before bulldozer

 

the site post bulldozer:

 

The site with sill logs:

 

The site with two layers of logs, joist hangers and porch joists in, and doorways blocked out:

 

And there we are! Not bad for ten days work.

hand on hip and jaw cocked

showered. in clothes that do not smell of woodsmoke. wearing flipflops. it's like a vacation!

after finishing the foundation, K. and I are at his parents' house for the night...and our day off tomorrow!

now, I'm tired of talking about the cabin. It's what K. and I do all day long, think about in the wee hours, and all of our outside conversations with other people include it. So I'll keep y'all updated, and when we remember our camera, I'll post pictures, but that's it, ya hear?
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problem being, I have nothing else to say. We don't even listen to the radio. I haven't read a book in a week. It's funny how fast a world can get small. Which brings me to a previous ponder: aging.

Because we all know that I like to chew my nails to stumps over things that aren't actually pressing problems, I worry about aging all the time. Not just the physical aspects, but also the personality parts. It seems to me, in my admittedly extreme youth, that some people just...stop at a certain point. And it's not even when they're super-duper old. They stop changing and growing and all those new-agey things I'm so fond of and become more like caricatures of what they were when that stop occurred.

Anyone noticed this? A person whose life, opinions, habits become static and gradually become more like a default reality?

In the cases I've seen, it's as if these people have had some small internal spring cease to function, because of some life tragedy, or, in one case, laziness.

That "stopping" has gone on my list of things to avoid, along with becoming fat, wearing mommy-jeans, and unprotected sun exposure.

on the second day

It smells good here. That’s the thing I keep noticing—the aroma of crushed fern, living evergreens, and clean quiet air. Last night, K. and I slept in our soft sheets, under our flannel comforter, on a futon with featherbed, in the bed of our truck. We pulled it in under the giant tarp-ceiling, draped the track-rack with mosquito netting, and fell soundly asleep to the sounds of crickets and water falling from the leaves of the trees.

So far: the camp site is set up. And since we’re here for a month, the campsite includes food shelves, pots hanging from clothesline, a stone-rimmed firepit with coal-cooking area, many, many boxes of tools, a work bench, a card table with candles and stools, and lastly, a marble slab on stools with a vase and candles for me, with a mirror tacked to a tree above, acting as a very deluxe vanity. It’s beau-tiful.

That was yesterday. Today, many trees met their ends, and we now have two improved roads (the entrance road and the old logging road we’ll be dragging our cabin trees on), as well as a completely level building site. In case you’re in awe: Harry came over with a bulldozer. On our side of things, K. and I have erected half of an outhouse. The hole is dug, and the structure itself is about half-done. It is also beau-tiful, with a fab view into the green trees and to the blue mountains. Pictures will follow when completed.

Best incident: a mouse ran up my pants. Yep. I was carefully moving stones, and found two little field mice. I couldn’t leave them, as that area is now completely flatted by the dozer, and so I carefully picked up the last stone, their last hiding place. One headed for the wood pile, and one went up my pants. I shook my leg a few times, but nothing came out, so I went about my business until I felt little legs crawling up my lower thigh. And even though I knew what it was, I still hollered and danced around while whipping my pants off.

--- end of cabin building installation

On the interminable drive between DC and Vermont, I listened to an NPR interview with Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopalian priest. Her story was mainly about why she left her church and began teaching, but she said something that’s been playing on my mind ever since. Warning: it’s about God.

I’ve always conceived of God as a person, despite all the official gender-neutrality thing. The closest I’ve managed to achieving that is having God be female sometimes. Kind of like one of those weird frogs. But BBT said she conceived of God as this infinite web of conecctedness, omnipresent. Maybe I’ve perverted her words in my head, but that’s what I took away—and I really like it. It makes God more like this alternate reality that if you slow down, you can touch.

I think I’m a fan.
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The bulldozer approaches. Until soon!

how can i talk about ideas when I have so much NEWS?

My fingernails are chewed to the quick, I have a stress-induced spot on my face, and my toes are unpainted for once, but-- the house is empty. Packed. Done, pretty much, except the final cleaning we'll do before we leave.

And I better get my beauty act together because... K. got the job in Mississippi, where the girls take their looks very seriously. That's right-- our official unemployment period lasted a grand 15 days, though we still get September to build our cabin. We'll be driving to Oxford directly after VT, and K. begins work October 11th.

That's not very far away, but in that time period, I will spent a month in the woods, built a cabin, had a birthday, and moved up and down the east coast twice. It's a fast pace, these days, and I'm doing my best to stay kosher with all this tasty change...

But meanwhile, I'm going to shout out to my sweetie, who handles moving with excitement and unbelievable competence, my frequent standing-in-the-middle-of-the
-room-crying-and-mumbling-about-my-china-pattern breakdowns with grace, and negotiations with corporate bigwigs while in his underwear on a stool in our empty kitchen with aplomb. Throw in the fact he managed to take apart all the plumbing to unplug the sink, and I'd call him a winner. (man, did I luck out.)

alright, i know, we're still not in vermont.

here's the skinny: our house is in boxes. we're back from a 2-day family thing at the beach. we're walking through our house with the landlord on sunday to get our whopping security deposit back and we're heading north on monday. tuesday: set up a campsite, meaning find places for the tools, make a make-shift kitchen, and to k's disgust, set up a counter with mirror for me. wednesday: build the outhouse, go madly shopping for necessary supplies. thursday: start assembling the foundation.

we can do this. we can do this!

diatribe #416

Well, I have to say for all you people slogging through day jobs: not working is fabulous.

that being said, k. and i found telling people that we are unemployed so distressing that we've resorted to "we're retired." which is pretentious, but a lot more fun.(and no, we don't have enough money to retire. sabbatical's probaly the most accurate).

So, we've spent the last week driving around the East Coast, visting friends, family, and most notably, a now-9-day-old baby, Jilas Alistaire, born to our friends. We saw him on Monday, meaning that's he's practically doubled in age by now. Crazy, eh? He's a beautiful baby.

While I am as happy and confident about moving away from DC and taking September to build a cain, the people we've come into contact with in the past week (NOT our actual friends, but more the at-party-conversations) have not been as supportive as one might think. The "that's-not-possibles" have made me wonder how many people are settling in life. People are shocked to find out the K. and I have planned our departure from DC for as long as we've lived here; they're bitterly incredulous that we're not hiring construction crews to build a one-room cabin without electricity or plumbing; and strangely, they're resentful that we've saved enough to take a few months off without wiping ourselves out financially.

How have we come from a nation where people strode into the wilderness and created homes with handtools and old-fashioned labour to a society where unjamming a sink requires a plumber and knowing how to run a chainsaw makes one a woodsman? Now, granted, I still don't know how to use my $35 sewing machine. I've never canned in my life. But I've learned how to use woodtools, weedwhackers, and I can cook-- that puts me significantly ahead of most people, and I have big plans to keep aquiring more skills. My husband, blessed to come from a family where people know how to do things, regularily astonishes people with his ability to work on his car, do drywall, install water heaters, rebuild lawn mowers, and the like.

What's interesting is that domestic skills-- and yes, domestic skills involve screwdrivers and drills as well (domicile means house, not women's work)-- but anyway-- domestic skills have become vilified. Women are afraid to learn to cook and clean, and they don't replace those pretty necessary household tasks with the other duties, such as car maintenance, gardening, etc.

My beef isn't with people eating take-out, or getting their oil changed at Jiffy Lube. It's about the mentality that we are not capable of taking care of ourselves, and so we pay, pay, and pay for everything. For cooking. For food itself, because we're too lazy to grow it. For oil changes and fuse replacements. For someone to clean our toilets.

I don't know how to build a cabin, but my husband's read some books, done some things with his hands, and I'm a good follower. We're willing to learn.

There's a great how-to section at the library. Which, incidentally, is free to join.

resolutions

Today is my last day of work.

I'm a nostalgic kind of person. I keep photo albums...and in a trunk, there is every picture I've ever taken that didn't make it into the photo albums. I have notes I passed in 5th grade, and they didn't survive by accident. I kept them. Because I'm a keep-and-cry-about-them-later person.

But I'm not feeling the least bit sad about leaving this job. Sure, it paid well enough, and I learned proofreading, BenchPress, and how pompous public health authors are, but the main lesson I learned here?

Don't waste time doing something you're not interested in. Sure, I was panicked, with about a three-week window to get a job (and more importantly a fix on my job's location), and the money was good and the hours decent. But really? There are so many places I wish I had worked while I was here. The National Preservation Society, the Land Trust Association, the Building Museum...

So next time, I'm not settling for something I know I can do with my eyes hut. Here's to being challenged.

And my novel selling for an unprecedented advance, so the whole issue becomes irrelevant anyway :)

-- NOT THAT IT HAS, MIND YOU. just that it should.

tibet

Great idea:

A bike tour in Tibet. It's going on my list of things to do before I die.

very small nuts

I have this tendency to focus on very small things in times of stress. It's an obnoxious habit to the people around me, an irritating one to me, but nonetheless, in the face of a move, a job we STILL don't know about, and cabin-building, not to mention my undetermined career, I find myself obsessively coordinating an operation to move the furniture my grandmother left to my incapable father which currently resides in storage. The partners? A sulky teenage sister, a grumpy husband, a fugitive and mentally unpredictable father, and my least favorite aunt.

Everything is set up now. We'll see if it happens. But I finally realized that if it doesn't, it's ok. Because the only reason I'm worrying about it is because I'm a nutter with a burning need to focus on the very small nuts.

Nearly a year ago (ok, a month and nine days), I was slicing lemons and limes in my mother's kitchen at midnight. Because my wedding would NOT be complete if there were not PERFECTLY ROUND slices of lemons and lime to float in the water pitchers (despite the fact that I hadn't yet MADE the bouquets, boutineers, or table arrangements. That came later. With Mom and Nastasha, bless their hearts.) Before I climbed into the Packard for the church, I left a very detailed note for the caterers, telling them exactly where to find said lemon and lime circles.

At the reception, sitting finally married next to K., I saw the lemons and limes, thrown on a plate, shoved on the furthest corner of the beverage table, nowhere near a pitcher of any kind. And I didn't care.

Well, I cared a little. But relatively, not that much, especially compared to K., who kept jumping up from our table like a jack-in-the-box because his pet project, the wooden barrel of wine with a spigot, kept not being fully turned off by silly drunken people. The slight stream of wine was like a knife thrust to his heart. (Somehow, neither of us stressed out about the fact that the lights strung between the trees were going off and on as the fuses blew. The groomsmen, bless their hearts, handled that.)

Point being.... well, disasters may come, and crises may mount, but you'll find me in a corner, polishing the smallest nut on my shirt, worried that perhaps it's cracking or getting old or has nut disease.

I'm stretching here, I know, but lordy, it's FUN making these analogies work hard.

blissing

In the absence of a community of peers here in DC and with a plethora of sitting in front of a computer hours, I have found online people who inspire me. Like FarmGirl, who's got 240 acres in Missouri with sheep and a donkey. And Apifera Farm, where an artist and her husband are raising sheep and lavender. And now, Blue Poppy, who's got an off-the-grid house up in New England on 82 acres. (All bloggers, all fab-- check 'em out by googling).

Life happens out of urban areas! And by the end of this month, K. and I will be somewhere conducting a non-urban life! The fact that we do not yet know to what state we're moving our house scares me, but overall (today), I am SO EXCITED to be leaving the pavement, the crowds, the nothing-is-more-important-than-my-job and the overwhelming sense of guilt I have because we don't go to museums, or see bands, or even eat out. I think that wherever we settle I have a better shot of finding MY people-- the people who want to party in a field next to a bonfire and take hikes and just HANG OUT and eat stuff without all of this trekking across town and I'm-sorry-but-can-we-reschedule and I'm on Atkins/South Beach/Allergic-to-gluten BULLSHIT (p.s. you're not. You're just not. Because anyone who is actually allergic to gluten would have died a long, long time ago, when all anyone ever ate was gluten gluten GLUTEN. Oh, and ps-- being allergic does not mean you pass a bit of gas-- it means swelling up and HAVING TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL or else you WOULD DIE. So shut up already).

Anyway. We're moving, and today, I'm filled with wonder and excitement that I get to live in the country, after 5 years of exile, much earlier than expected.

Happy weekend!

Finally, I have a thought.

Historically, I have remained on the fence about Hillary Clinton. She's smart. She polarizes people. She married a willy-slinger. She has the DC helmet head thing.

Apparently, Hillary is being seriously considered as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. This morning, while brushing my teeth, I listened to people talk on NPR about whether or not this was a good idea.

And you know what? I came out a convert.

EVERYONE thinks Hillary is a kickass senator who has done a great job. SOME people want her to run. And some people don't. You know why? Because they don't think she would win. Why? Because she's a woman. Over and over again: she's great, but America's not ready for a female president.

I understand that we need a good president next. I understand that the Democrats need a candidate who can win. But guys, come ON.

Let's look at the things Hillary Clinton has done right. Top student in high school-- no pot-smoking scandals there. Valedictorian with a political science major at Wellesley-- unlike Bush AND Kerry. She was the first student to deliver a commencement address and her peers gave her a standing ovation. Onto Yale Law, where she did well, did work for children, migrants, etc., and then became 1 of 2 female faculty members at the University of Arkansas's Law School. Throw in the pro bono work for poor migrant families, and I'd call her someone who has worked hard and used her power for good. She was named one of America's top 100 lawyers. (Incidentally, while she was First Lady, she continued working as a lawyer. Who knew?)

I'd like to be able to tell my daughters that if they really want to, they could become president.

But apparently, that's not true. Because here is a woman who HAS worked hard, who's undeniably more able than many of her peers and most the lame-ass Democrats we put up as candidates, and support is less than unanimous because she's a WOMAN?

Let's be logical here. She's past the childbearing age, so conservatives can't whip that one out. I'm sure she's post-menopause, so no need to worry about matters of state being interrupted by a period (although in my understanding, menstruation is considerably more easy to plan around than penises).

Also consider that Hillary has already been in the White House. She knows what this is about. Plus, she was married to a GOOD president, one whom people liked and the economy did well under, and he would be nothing but a political asset to her.

Lastly, what the hell could she do to worsen things? Increase the deficit? Jeopardize our foreign relations? Send the economy swirling down the tubes?

Give the woman a shot. She's certainly earned it.

I'm a little stress-pot :)

I'm trying hard not to think about things these days, which is why I haven't been posting much. What with the accounting department breathing down my neck with unintelligible whispers (really, just one guy; I don't know where he's from, and I can't ask him, because I would not be able to understand his answer), and the poor trees in the Andes who have 100 years to move 2700 feet up the cloudy slops to escape global warming, and the mass profusion of dog hair that hangs in the air of my house, and the 100+ degrees heat, and the disasters in the Middle East, not to mention the fact that we've started packing and I don't know what state we're moving it all to, complicated by the fact that despite the house with walls and closed windows and a screened-in porch, mosquitos slip in and then do things like last night where one bit my FACE... well, throw all those things in a pot and let's just say I'm a bit crazier than usual, filled with whirling anxiety, which I am doing my very pitiful best to suppress by not thinking. And doing yoga. And avoiding coffee.

One strange side effect? I've started reading non-fiction books that have little to do with my current life. It's really relaxing to read about how the hip British set throw house parties (Domestic Bliss), or the perils awaiting upper-middle class women with children and husbands with high-powered careers (Perfect Madness), and now I'm into the Harvard study of aging, which tracked 3 different cohorts from 1910 on, and some guy wrote a book based off it called "Aging Well."

I'm 23, people. Despite my attachment to sunscreen and my growing predilection for flannel pajamas, I know I don't have to read that book yet. (I have been restraining myself from using a nightly retinol cream for probably 4 years, and I really can't wait until I hit 28, because then I can buy the Olay anti-aging reams without feeling quite so loony.)

So enjoy the summer, have a blessed Tuesday, and know I'll be in my cubicle, drinking tea, as mindless as I can possibly be.

_________

and quietly thankful. Because you don't get to be stressed and whine about it on a blog when you have real and huge problems.

happiness, in various forms

I gave my notice this morning. And it feels goooood, regardless of the fact that the two people who need to read it haven't come into the office yet.
____________________________

mInor miracles:

I've been feeling lonely in the last week. And lo! Emails from Angeline and Stinkie, a phone call AND a sourdough recipe from Megan, a note from Mama C., a letter from Danielle, and a dinner date with my highschool friend Lex. So many lovebombs dropped in my direction that I've managed to be supportive of K's illness, rather than horribly angry because my constant playmate is out of commission. Which, in turn, means that K. himself feels loved and cosseted during his time of mucus and hacking. A fabulous cycle.
____________________________

Tonight:

homemade asparagus, bacon, and mushroom quiche for the bookclub girls who are coming to invade my house. K. threatens to wander downstairs in his ginormous red onesie (complete with bumflap) and say "where's my wife?" in plantive sick tones.

Considering that we're leaving DC, I think he should :)

Toodles chickies.

ramble, complain, ramble ramble

Gah! How did it get to be Wednesday without me posting? Gah!

Probably because it's been one of those tired, cranky, stressed out for no REAL reason weeks.

Or maybe because of the seasons 1 and 3 of Scrubs that came in the mail.

GAH! My boss just walked in (10.40 am, about average), and I said good morning and he said NOTHING! Gah! And my coworker has been out for 3 days and already has Friday off and all because he hurt his KNEES! And I could use his help! GAH!

so, I really intended to disguise my mental illness and write y'all a fun happy, cheery post, where exclamation points were more like balloons and less like anxiety-filled daggers, but this is what you get. it's like yesterday, when the aerobics instructor told me to grab the ball between my ankles by using my abs to lift myself up, as opposed to bringing my ankles down until I could just grab the ball, and honestly, I tried, but I COULDN'T. (Because she's an ab exhauster, that one. People moan in this class. Many leave early.)

Happy Wednesday.

___________________

Update:

I left for lunch and had a piece of lemon pound cake with my yogurt and nectarine out in the sun. Finished the novel I've been reading, "Sufficient Grace," which I needed. You know how sometimes you get to thirsting for a good, deep book? The kind that fills you up so that you read it in small, rich chunks?

So everything's fine.

Berries

It began to thunder as soon as I took the dogs out for a walk last night, but I still made it to the farmer down the street in time to get a pint of freshly picked blackberries.

Charlie, the farmer, inspires me. He has a double or triple lot in our suburban neighborhood, and after he retired, he expanded his garden to become the only farmer on downtown Silver Spring. He's out there every day, for hours and hours and hours, and he has a sign that lets you know what's available. I keep trying to get some of his blueberries, but the housewives clean him out by early evening.

Point being, though, that it's his garden that inspires me. He grows his blackberries and raspberries on fencewire strung above the ground between posts... K. tells me that this is very common, but it's so NEAT! and space saving! And everything he grows is in clean tidy rows or trimmed bushes or trained vines and I just LOVE it. Must be the German in me :)

A neighbor told K. that last year, a lady came and bought all of his strawberries-- which are apparently amazing-- and loaded pints and pints of them into her SUV. She then said to her companion, "lets get these home so we can freeze them." Charlie got righteously angry, pointed his old finger at her, and said "If I'd known you were going to freeze those, I wouldn't have sold them to you. Those are for EATING."

Damn straight, silly greedy woman.

______________________

I get tomorrow off! So have a pleasant weekend, chickies. We're going to the daylily and wine festival in Fisherville, Virginia with my mom. Good clean family fun.

Blogging for Books: On Being Between

*a brief explanation for my regular readers—cough—heck, mom, just ask me about it tonight.*

**but if you’re really curious, Joshilyn Jackson (http://www.joshilynjackson.com/mt/) tells me that if my blog entry on “between” wins various places, I get various copies of her books. And I kind of have a she’s-published-and-funny crush on her.**



When I was six, I had a fight with my mother. I ran outside to my favorite invisible spot to sulk and fume. I wanted to run away, but I didn't.

You can leave when you're eighteen, I told myself. After you finish school, so you can get a job and eat and pay for things. Practical, yes, but even at six I knew I wouldn't enjoy starving. At six, eighteen seemed very far away. I can't really be sure that I counted the thirteen years between me and the adequate number correctly, but I knew it was far, and I knew I had to wait, for the gulf comprising Between to become smaller and smaller until I could step onto my own land. (Mom, I love you. Don't get mad at me. I was six.)

When I met K., I was eighteen. When I fell in love with him, I was twenty. We waited for me to graduate college to marry, so that we could tell our children to do it right, and it took bloody forever. Eighteen months between me and him becoming an us. Then nine, and then four, and then, very scarily, fewer than two.

We're married now, thank Heaven. Almost immediately after our return from our honeymoon, I started writing a novel. The first attempt, 10k of words in, got chucked out, and then followed a time of intense outlining. I've been drafting for nearly seven months now, going through four outlines. Fifty thousand words down. Fifty thousand left. So far, I don't enjoy drafting. It's what I have to do to get to the revising stage, the stage which might sound like tweaking, but what-- for me-- will be more like art and less like me scraping the inside of my head clean and throwing it at the page.

There are light years between me now and me becoming an established writer. Our land in Vermont does not yet have the stone terracing and enchanted cabin we've planned. I need to learn how to sew before I can re-slipcover my sofa.

I really would like to get to the cabin and the slipcovers and the career, but I know that I can't begrudge every log, every sewing lesson, every page that lies between me and my dreams. Go easy, I tell myself. Savor the way.

But keep going.

Monday

I got a 3% cost of living raise, along with all the other staff at this organization. I'm really not sure how I became employable. Last year, I wasn't; this year, I am-- and all that's changed is that my desire to work in a corporate world went from slightly above zero to way, way, way below. Anyone want to make a fair wage for doing mindlessly little? Email me-- there might be a job opening here soon :)

I added some links on the right. Farmgirl Fare's awesome, mainly for the daily pictures that remind me there is a world beyond overpriced 1/10 acre lots, and I shall get there. Country...mmm, country. I yearn to be a rural resident the way a thirteen year-old Midwesterner adolescent dreams of living in New York City-- passionately and grandly.

I just got interrupted by one silly email, my husband asking me to come home, and my boss handing me the papers I've been waiting for him to return.

Gotta go. But happy Monday nonetheless.

swiss smackdown

K. and I heard the following on NPR yesterday morning, and right after the commentator said that the news would irritate Israel and the U.S., it got cut off. A few seconds later, the commentator began speaking about something else.

This piqued my curiousity.

I couldn't find it on CNN, so I googled "switzerland israel" and the only major US news source that came up was FOX news. The excerpt below is from their site, published July 3rd.

GENEVA — Switzerland said Monday that Israel has been violating international law in its Gaza offensive by heavy destruction and endangering civilians in acts of collective punishment banned under the Geneva conventions on the conduct of warfare.

"A number of actions by the Israeli defense forces in their offensive against the Gaza Strip have violated the principle of proportionality and are to be seen as forms of collective punishment, which is forbidden," the Swiss Foreign Ministry said in a statement.



Since the Swiss rarely say anything about anyone, this seems... momentous. And strangely, no one knows.

jealousy

Even though NO ONE COMMENTS anymore, I have decided to write you a I’m back blog anyway.

P-heads.

So, 4th of July, rah, rah—no seriously, rah. I have never at all been happy to be an American until I went to India. Alright, so our president sounds EXACTLY like my majorly alcoholic and very much in denial father every time he opens his mouth (really—it’s spooky), and we underpay our teachers and fund the drug and oil companies and all the other things that we liberals (me included) weep in our lattes over. But people, believe me, be happy to be an American. There’s a reason people cling to rafts and roast in trucks and walk through deserts to get here.

In other news:

I don’t know if I’m more honest or just meaner than everyone else out there. Is no one else scarily competitive about cooking or incredibly mean about other people’s success? Is it really just me? I scared K. yesterday when I raised my head from a biography of Colette (thank you, I’m a genius) to listen to a book review on NPR. The book review itself didn’t make much of an impression. Instead, it was the speaker’s voice—nasal and drawling on the last word of each statement, reminding me of a precocious yet arrogant know-it-all. I said, “that’s one annoying voice,” and K. agreed with me.

Then I found out it was Curtis Sittenfield! This made me so happy, I crowed out loud.

You see, Curtis Sittenfield is on my I hate her because she’s too successful list, which generally includes all commercially successful female writers under the age of 28. After 28 it’s ok. Don’t ask me why.

I have never read a book of hers. I just know she wrote a boarding school novel and struck it big, and for that and nothing more, I dislike her. After I’m famous, I’m sure we’ll be friends.

But anyway. Anyone? Jealousy? Anyone?

A very important meeting at my very important job looms. So someone say something already.

so that you'll return to read my blog because i have something new on it, unlike nicholas

We're heading to Vermont tomorrow, at the crack of dawn. Check nobadkitty.blogspot.com for our schedule :)
________

As many of you know, it poured here for several days. Water spewing out of sewers, teens swept away in raging creeks, metro stations flooded-- the whole shebang.

I really thought my garden would rot. Yesterday, after it cleared, I went out and found the poppies a bit battered-- but the dogs like to poop on them, so that wasn't new-- and everything else-- well, thriving. Weeds, basil, sunflowers, and all.

Somehow, despite my application of DEET-containing repellent, I got bitten multiple times. Which didn't surprise me so much, other than the fact that I was wearing pants and either one got down them or one bit me through the pants THREE TIMES on my bumcheek.

Someone made a huge mistake when they built DC on a swamp.
________

I made a kickass creamy roasted garlic soup over the weekend. Cleaned us all right out. Epicurious.com for the recipe (just type in garlic soup).
_______

Why do people like blocking out the light so much? I hate blinds. Blinds are invented by the D-man. There's a store near us that gives you in-store financing so that you cann afford the blinds of your choice. Going into debt for blinds. That's like taking out a loan to buy trashy magazines. Just leave the windows alone, people. Back away from the blinds.

Hee.

My cubicle neighbor and I sit next to wall-to-ceiling windows that look out over a fairly picturesque street. I have total control over one blind, he has total control over another, and the one between us we fight over, but in really subtle ways. When he's out, I pull that bad baby all the way up. When he comes back, he lowers it half-way but keeps the slats open, and then when I go out for lunch, I return to find it closed and down.
_______

Scrubs (the show)

Now, who thinks this is funny?

J.D. is somehow lying on the ground, prone at the feet of the girl he has a major crush on. They're supposed to go on a date that night. One of the ways the shows' creators try to convince us that they're perfect for each other is they both say "zoom, zoom, zoom" after they say something cutting.

Him: lying prone.
Her: "See you at seven-- and wear something slutty! zoom, zoom, zoom."

Its magnificance has not palled, even though I repeat it to K. daily. Man, I love Scrubs.

_______

Something intellectual, because we are supposed to wonder here, after all:

Scratching my ear--

Oh, I dunno. Have a happy 4th, chickens.

mawwiage is what bwings us together today

Conversation from last night:

K. and I are sitting, having bowls of the chicken soup I made over the weekend following a new recipe.

Me: It's just not that great.
Him: I like it.
Me: Is it the best chicken soup you've ever had?
Him: No.
Me: Then it's not good enough.


Conversation from this morning:

7:00 am
Him: Are you getting up?
Me: You get up first for once.

Injured sleep. Argue a few more times.

7.25 am
Me: fine. You win.

I get up and head blearily for the shower.

Him: it's not a competition.
Me: I'm getting in the shower, and you're still in bed. I'd say you won.

Victorious silence from the bedroom.

Burning Buttocks and Bush

I am a blog reader. Tiny Kingdom over at ivillage is handsdown my favorite. This post, while not her most outrageous or even her funniest, is really sweet.

http://tinykingdom.ivillage.com/parenting/archives/2006/06/the_tale_of_the_burning_buttoc.html

In other news:

I was thinking about my peer group, the early twenties, and how I really don't know one person who likes Bush. I'm sure they're out there, but they just don't float through my vicinity. Then I was thinking how I might respect someone my age if they did like Bush, but only if they were a lone dissenter. I'm fond of lone dissenters, being an Appalachian southerner and all. And then I thought-- but wait! What the heck would they like him for? They have to have a reason, after all...economy? No. Foreign relations? No. Good work ethic? (DOES ANYONE REMEMBER when he was running for president the first time and we found he plays video games for an hour a day? And then after 9/11, no one ever talked about it again? WHAT happened to that?) So no to that as well. Environment? HELL NO, despite his little Hawaii water sop. Fiscal policies? I am practicing meditative breathing as I just leave it at-- no.

So no, lone dissenter, I would not respect you after all.

bright and gay I shall remain

Many thanks to Nicholas and his creativity over at http://bignickstyle.livejournal.com/. That's me, that's K., and those are things we've said on this blog-- but no, we have not actually made any CDs.

It's Wednesday, it's humid and gray, and my house is a mess, but most things are well with the world. I was reading a blog during my idle time the other day and found a girl, my age, whose profile identified her as a Quaker interested in "plain dress."

Not knowing precisely what this meant, I googled it. And found that there are many women and men around the country who follow varying levels of plain dress, from the girl who switched from sales to software development so that she could wear her bonnet, to the aforementioned girl my age, who wears conservative cuts and colors not made in sweatshops.

Who knew. I didn't have time to do extensive research, but it made me question my planned purchase of a skinny fuschia t-shirt on Friday. And for those men who don't know what a "skinny" t-shirt is, it's what I call those t-shirts whose material is relatively thin, but not transparent. Transparent are those insanely tissue-tees, which I can't ever wear to work because...well, you know why.

But still. It's nice to know that people my age are at least consciously considering their sartorial choices, even if I have no desire to join them.

Ponder of the Month:

Class, what do you like about yourself?

Me (hand going up and waving frantically): I'll go first!

And I will.

Things I Like About Myself:

-- I am so entranced by my pretty painted toes that I take off my shoes or stare at my feet at least three times daily. And not just today. I do this week after week, as I am a habitual toe-painter.

-- I make the bed nine out of every ten mornings.

-- I dare to love celebrities.

-- I feel guilty when I don't recycle.

-- I don't want to die before I get old. (many people do.)

-- I feed the people I love.

-- I got married young.

-- I read trash and quality.

-- my passion for medieval history.

-- I like hanging out with my family. Including K's family.

-- my deep suspicion of labor-saving and life-improving devices. Such as BlackBerries, Treons, Ipods, and the like. Although, as always, I love my dishwasher.

-- that I don't really care if my husband takes me out for dinner. 40 bucks on dinner and a movie is not a necessary monthly obligation. (And it's a good thing, mr. thrifty-pants).

--the ways I keep surprising myself.



At the risk of being selfish and self-congragulatory, it's a good thing to be nice to yourself. Kiss your knees. Have a mango and a cup of tea. You're probably a nice person.

we don't have kids. But we do have...

The three dogs (our two, and a houseguest) are getting to be a bit much. This morning, K. and I clung to each other under the covers as the dogs raced around the bed, nails clicking maniacally on the floors, and ending with a grand finale of what can only be described as a catfight, despite their canine identities.

I think it was maybe seven am.

I can only think that the constant barrage of puke, poop, pee, hair, and stunts like opening the refrigerator (oh yes, they can, and they do-- we now have a lock) and removing the single slice of cheese I packed to melt over my lunch of minestrone is preparing me for motherhood.

We came home on Monday to vomit that stained the hardwood floor. I have no idea what it could have been.

Watching our shows on the porch last night, I realized that we had literally locked the dogs outside so that we could enjoy our evening in peace. They didn't mind, as hanging out in the yard and fearlessly attempting to assault every passerby is their idea of a well-spent day, but you know what?

We won't be able to lock our actual children outside.

And they'll grow up enough to open the child-safe lock. By which time, theoretically, they won't eat 15 raw eggs the way Shadow did, and then emit them in various forms all over the house...but still. My cheese might not be safe.

And they'll open the doors that we keep closed so that no one barfs or pees on our bed.

Hmmm.

But you know what? If we get a bigger house with more land, we'll probably adopt another dog.

Go figure.

Whitman, McDonalds, and dreams of blackmail...

Today is Walt Whitman's birthday. He sold a house to self-publish "Leaves of Grass" in 1855. Over 30 years later and after 9 revisions and subsequent publishings, the Society for the Suppression of Vice called it immoral and it began to sell.

Whitman used the money to buy a cottage where he lived for the rest of his life.

2 points:

The Society for the Suppression of Vice--think of the blackmailing potential of that club...mm, so juicy I could spread it on bread and eat it as a sandwich.

He sold a house, and eventually, got a cottage.

Yet more proof that poetry doesn't pay.


--randomly-- I thought the ads for McDonald's Asian salad looked kind of...delish. So I went on their website, looked up all the nutritional ins-and-outs, and got really, really excited about lunch today.

Then I went to McDonald's.

The salad was pretty darn tasty. The refusal of a cup for tap water, the long line, the dirty floor, the bum who twice asked me for money after spending over $6 on a combo meal, the man who sang God Bless America next to me, and the different man with a soiled crotch area who was hauled away by police after screaming about his picture ID was not.

Short-term solution: take the salad back to my office.

Long-term solution-- leave the damn city.

because it's my blog, after all.

My stomach is so resoundingly empty that is digesting itself, my husband's been trapped at his desk all week with a coworker and ergo can't email or call me every five minutes like usual, and due to my staying late for the summertime every-other-Friday-off, I have to stay until 5 (wah, I know, work for a non-profit).

I try not to write too much about myself on this blog, because the whole point was to find things that surprise me and share them.

But I got nothing, except a funny story.

We leave the house at 7.30 to make my 8 am starting time. If I'm good, I get out of bed at 6, take a shower and shove my contacts in, walk downstairs and let out the dogs (plus one these days since we have the lovely Penny visiting us), and start the coffee. When said dogs begin awakening the neighborhood by baying like hounds from hell, I then summon them inside. Repeat a few times. While the coffee brews, I get lunches togther, and at 6.30 am, I am sitting in front of a laptop to log in my daily 500 words, with shower, dogs, and lunches done (theoretically. and I usually make the lunches the night before).

Seven am. Time for K. to get in the shower.

Scene from yesterday morning:

"Kagan, get in the shower."

"But I'm so snoooozy." Turn away and wrap pillow.

"wE'VE BEEN LATE EVERYDAY THIS WEEK! gET IN THE SHOWER!"

"I know." Sit up, looking boyish and adorable. "You come here"-- slyly opening his arms-- "and we'll cuddle and snooze for just a minute."

I back away from the bed. "NO! YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT AND THEN WE'RE THIRTY MINUTES LATE!"

Cruelly, I flip the covers off of him. He screams like a little girl and yanks them back. I grab one leg and pull it to the floor.

"Get out of bed!"

"Look how small I am!" he says, and curls himself like a snailshell in the middle of the bed. "You can't seeee meeeee."

Rip the covers off once more and pull both legs to the floor. Then nearly break my back trying to pick him up.

"Kagan, come on, just get in the shower!" Last note way too high with frustration.
He ignores this and then falls on me, pinning me to the bed. Snuggles his head into my neck and closes his eyes while I beat on his back.

As soon as I sound like I might cut his liver out with a dull knife, he relents, gets up, and strides off to the bathroom with a jaunty spring in his step.

Grr.

Oh, but we're not over. Despite the fact that we now have 15 minutes to walk out the door, Kagan stands in the shower while I brush my teeth, moisturize, do makeup and hair, etc. I lose patience, and snap "Put the SHAMPOO in your HAIR."

He does so. Rinse, repeat, until I've handed him his prebagged lunch and we're in the car, various degrees late, him as happy as a lark and me-- well, I don't know what I would do without all of it.

Just go to work?

It'd be too easy.

Things I've learned while "researching"

Who knew:

Jehovah's witnesses are politically "neutral", like Switzerland. They're not pacifists. They just don't have opinions. But they do pay taxes.


At one point in medieval history, the average age of marriage for a lower-middle-class woman was around 24. Land was so limited that everyone had to wait for their parents to die before they could get married...I don't remember, but offhand I'd say this was before 1348, e.g. the plague, when the population was at a critical point.


It takes about 2 acres for a cow and calf to proper if they're solely grass-fed, and about 1.5 acres if their diet is supplemented with grain. Incidentally, feeding cows grain alters the protein compenents of their meat, and makes it much more fatty, hence the don't-eat-red-meat stuff. Grass-fed beef has omega-6 proteins, just like the much-touted fish.


Borage, the herb, tastes like cucumber.


All those movie stars with long-lived marriages? They were married before. That's right. Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, and Sting all had first wives (and in Newman and Sting's case, I believe they left their firsts for the seconds).


Have a happy day, chickens.

literary thoughts

I am writing a novel.

For me, it's overpoweringly scary, because I can;t laugh it off as a hobby-- I do want to do this full-time-- and there's no assurance I'll ever get published, let alone be successful. But hey, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right?

K. and I go to the library weekly. As a recent college grad and an aspiring author, I'm noticing that what I take home from the library has changed. I don't have to read anything for classes, but I avoid authors who-make-me-hyperventilate-into-my-pillow-crying-because-I'll-never-be-that-good (Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Munro (damn, Alice Munro), Alice Hoffman, and many more...luckily no new books from any of them lately). I like chick lit, and I take that home by the cartload. Bergdorf Blondes. Beyond Blonde. Good in Bed (one of the few well-crafted chick lit novels). I'm aiming slightly higher than these girls, so I can read them.

And then, there's the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't want my brain to entirely rot, so generally I take home one solid work of literature on every trip. Ann Beattie. Limpiri (sp?). And John Updike.

I have now read five John Updike novels, all based off the first one which I really liked (don't remember the title but I believe the man character's name was Henry.) And here's my conclusion: the man really, really doesn't like women.

Which is sad, seeming as he had four children with his first wife and is now married to another. And randomly, he's been supporting himself and his family as a full-time writer ever since he was in his mid-twenties, which I find enormously impressive, plus he's published gazillions of serious literary books-- also enormously impressive. But you know? I can't read him anymore. Yeah, I really enjoy where his mind sometimes goes, but after reading 3/4 of the Rabbit series, I just can't. Too much adultery and casual sex and a total disregard for women's emotional needs. Examples? Well, Rabbit and Janice have a tumultuous marriage in their 30+ years together, filled with affairs and separations and then finally in their middle age, a certain kind of peace. But sentiments like these-- I'm paraphrasing here-- revolt me. Rabbit looks at his wife and decides he needs to lay her soon, because she's getting all nervy, the way she does during dry spells.

Not his crudest, true, but the dispassionate and distant tone really turns me off. Plus Updike's comment about the mother of his children, whom he met at Harvard in the early 1950s-- the one where he says he got married to have sex, the way that people did back then. They divorced after 20ish years of marriage.

I'm disappointed. I got all invested in this man and his work, and then he just keeps digging up new veins of nastiness that poison his books for me.

If I get well-known, I pledge to use my pen for good, not evil.

scary men

I am tired of getting cat-called.

If I wrote that a month ago, I might have been lying a little bit. Really, it can be a bit thrilling walking down a street and having someone throw out a whistle. But now, post-India and after working downtown for over six months, I am really and truly tired of it.

Being tall and not dark, I got a lot of attention in India. Examples: people on the street took pictures of/with me. A wife led me to the dance floor and handed me off to her husband (which was so creepy that I feel I must have misinterpreted it). Young men in the train station stared so blatantly at me that K. moved in front of me to block their view. The men just moved so that they could once again view me, sweating in a grimy t-shirt reading Real Simple.

I bought a new dress last week, and realized I did not want to wear it to work because of any attention I might draw on the walk to work and from work/metro. Examples of attention? Well, once on my way home a man leered at me and then grabbed his crotch.

I wore my dress this morning and put a trench coat on over, to deflect attention, and happily, to deflect rain.

An hour ago, I slipped out and walked the block and a half to CVS for some ibuprofen. Without the trench coat. A black man sitting on the pavement told me very loudly that I was a tall girl he wanted to have sex with, and then proceeded to expand on that theme.

It's not just a race thing. A few weeks ago I was waiting for the light to change and a group of middle-aged corporate men hung out a black SUV and voiced appreciation vociferously.

I know I'm not the only one to have this kind of constant and disruptive attention, although I do think that any girl who walks a great deal or takes public transportation tends to get more, especially in an urban area.

I'm writing this trying to figure out what disturbs me so much. After all, I've been to Italy, and the Italian men are very forward. But there's a certain...ah, she's a woman, how beautiful, that doesn't come across from the American yeah-baby-I'd-do-you. The aggression, the anger, scares me in a way that the man-turning-to-watch-my-butt doesn't.

Why are all these men so angry?

at risk of revealing my genius...

I've recently been interested in the differences between what we know we should feel and what we do feel.

Come on. You know what I'm talking about.

I should have been exhilerated by getting to run with the stars of my JV crosscountry team, but I actually was really dissapointed and resentful that my place in the back of the pack had been denied to me.

I should have been a blushing emotional bride, but actually I was very calm and still.

I should have felt bored and invalidated my senior year decision to quit all the organized activities I had previously been involved in, but actually I was so relieved and happy (yep, I am competitive, but man, I hate pressure).

Anyone, anyone?

warning: nothing to do with India, and a mention of menstruation

Sometimes, on a gray day at the right moment during one’s hormonal cycle, one can feel a bit sad, a bit, well, mopey, for no real reason. In “Consciously Female”, a book by the medical director of Duke’s Center of Integrative Medicine, the author suggests that there’s a real societal bias against such mopiness (my word, not hers.)

Bear with me a moment.

I get up early generally, but it’s got to be with the light. I don’t like getting up in the dark. At the moment, I’m on a schedule I really like. Up at 6, writing by 6:20-6:30, out of the house for work by 7:30. There’s light outside at 6.

Just this morning, I was patting myself on the back regarding my disciplined habits. Then I remembered the equinox, the turn of the season that comes so soon. June does not equal winter in most people’s minds, but it’s the turning point, and the days will get nothing but shorter.

I don’t know how I’ll adjust my morning schedule next November, and this makes me angry. Suck it up. Get up early in the dark, even if you feel like a near-sighted mole fumbling in a dark claustrophobic cave. Work will not start later just because the sun takes its time coming up.

But why not? Why are we so…inflexible? Why can’t I be dreamy and a bit introspective for a week out of the month without reinforcing all negative PMS stereotypes? Why aren’t work hours shorter during the winter, when the days are short and our energy levels low?

Before the advent of air-conditioning, Washington used to shut down in the summer. Everyone got a break and headed to the cool hills, or at least stayed home close to fans. Farmers repaired machinery during the winter, stayed home and close to the hearth, venturing outside only for those necessary daily chores. Some public schools now start in early August, even the southern ones.

We live very far away from natural rhythms these days.

Just so you know: I'm still alive

So, went to India and back. How you?

We'll probably post a master trip summary with pics as soon as we get our act together. Right now, Kagan's waking up before I am, actually before dawn. I know. Bizarre. This morning he made me tea, fed the dogs, and got lunches together. I have been utterly usurped.


*As always, my plants grew better while I was away.*

Because I Can

I love celebrities. I just do. Why? Well, why do people love soap operas? The crazy hair, the plastic surgery, the he-did-what and she’s-with-who—but with celebrities, it’s real! Katie Holmes, a wholesome Catholic girl from Kansas, really did just have an aging super star’s illegitimate baby, and he really is trying to brainwash her into a cult. Really! This is happening! And there are pictures!

That being said, I have definite opinions about these people I’ve never met.

Celebrities I Dislike

Tom Cruise, ever since he split with Nicole Kidman (the Katie thing is just icing)
Mischa Barton (because she obviously never eats)
Keifer Sutherland (he looks like a nasty drunk)
Julia Roberts (I don’t know. But I do anyway.)


More entertainingly, there are some celebrities that I should dislike on principle, but I just don’t. See below.

Paris Hilton. Really. Despite the standing-on-a-car-at-Sundance and making everyone look for her lost two-carat diamond bellybutton ring. Despite the Greek shipping heirs. Despite the thousand-dollar-a-month tan and her nagging magazines to make her fake blue eyes even bluer. Why? Because she so, so, so loves being a celebrity, and really, she’s famous for… nothing. Except maybe the Greek thing. She’s got some serious chutzpah.

Mariah Carey. That girl consistently wears too-little and too-tight clothing. Most recently, I gazed at pictures of her frolicking in an ocean, while a very small white bikini tried and failed to cover her vavooms. That girl looks like she loves her pasta, and you know what? I think she looks fab.

Donald and Melania Trump. “Can I have a baby?” “As long as you look good.” “Can I have some diamonds?” “As long as you look good.” How refreshingly straightforward.

Ashton Kutchner and Demi Moore. Because besides being smokingly tasty, they’re just...cute. Despite the age difference. Despite that he fell in love with her while standing in a hotel hallway, listening to Demi tuck her children into bed. God bless ‘em.



Lastly, my girls. We maybe have never met, but I know that if Queen Latifah and Mandy Moore ever came into my corner of the world, we would totally be best friends. Forever.

Really.

Diatribes

We have a multitude of thoughts and plans going on, what with our upcoming trip to India for Mohit's wedding, a cabin to build in September, and potential new jobs/moves in October-- plus the normal stuff, like flowers and nighttables and Kagan's ongoing search for an affordable Toyota Tundra. So it's hard to focus on one thing and deliver a diatribe!

Nonetheless, I have risen to the occasion.

We heard a very sad piece on NPR this weekend about rural seniors who have to choose between medicine, fuel, and food. Apparently, there's an already-underfunded foodbox program that is due to be cut in the next round of the budget overhaul.


Diatribe number one:

I am all for cutting the budget. America has reached its debt ceiling, that number that we're not ever really supposed to get to. And what were the consequences?

We raised the ceiling. Now it's okay to be x number of trillions in debt, even though we said it wasn't before. However, it does seem ridiculous to me (anyone, anyone?) that we fund wars in foreign countries before we feed our old people, or send more to AIDS orphans, or give our teachers raises, or -- fill in the blank.


Diatribe number two:

Practice what you preach.

This saying came from somewhere. Someone had to mean it. And so, we teach our children to 1: save. 2: not knock down smaller kids just because you can. 3: when you don't turn in your homework/do your chores/feed the dog, you will face the consequences.

Yet-- most Americans are very, very in debt. And not just for their houses. And then, on a national level, we bully other nations, and on a local level-- well, there are people who hire day laborers and then don't pay them the promised wage. Because they don't have to. Lastly, consequences. Our staggering amount of national debt is a consequence. Our piss-poor air quality is a consequence. The mutating frogs and bleaching reefs are consequences. And so what do we do? Raise the debt ceiling, deny the evidence, say it's not our fault.

We can't change the government, but we can try to limit the use of bleach, recycle plastics and magazines, buy the recycled paper products.

It'd be nice if we did the things we told our kids to. Pick up after yourself. Take care of any creatures in your possession. Say please and thank you.


Diatribe number 3:

There's a lot of need in this world, and personally, it overwhelms me. Occasionally we send off checks, more out of guilt than anything else, and you know what? I have no idea what happens to that money. I don't see it make any kind of difference.

So, not to slam charitable giving, but when I heard about those seniors on NPR, I began thinking about what will fill in the gaps for those people when obviously the government will fail them.

And my only answer is the old-fashioned community.

Confessions of a Bad Gardener

There are two kinds of people: those who garden, and those who don't. Those that do are surrounded with masses of flowers, succulent berry bushes, and big fat tomatoes-- right?

I garden, ergo I am a gardener, but let's review my past:

When I was a child, my mother gave me my own plot to garden. I picked off bugs and watered my vegetable plants, which did quite well until the midsummer two-week trip to Nana's. I remember standing in front of my broccoli plants, crying, as they literally had no leaf left. The bugs had eaten my plants down to the spines.

I have never had my own home-grown broccoli.

In college, I came home for 4 months summers intent on gardening. I did secure a few small bowls of cherry tomatoes, but the whole leaving-in-August thing meant that I never tasted one of my own cantaloupes. They rotted with no one to eat them.

During my six months winter-July tenure in Vermont, I was actually on the garden crew. I learned about the beauty of greenhouses, and growing things from seed. I tried to grow my own herbs in my tiny Vermont aerie. The seeds started, sure, and then they stopped. In July, I packed up my Subaru and drove north to Price Edward Island with my mother, toting baby basil seedlings.

Four made it. I transplanted them into metal tin buckets that graced my yellow stoop in Nashville. They died in October, when I cut them off at the stalks and chopped up their leaves for a dinner party. But before you call this a success, please note that out of 6 different types of pants and hundreds of seeds, I emerged with 4 basil plants. Who were kinda spindly anyway.

And this year-- ah, this year. With my indefatigable talent for killing things, I started sweet peas, who grew fervently until I put them in the ground. They have all died.

Last night, I planted poppies, snap peas, and two more sweet peas outside. I transplanted my baby delphinium seedlings into bigger pots.

Keep your fingers crossed.

*But because my husband loves me, he did say that if all my seedlings die, we can buy annuals and transplant them ourselves. And for a thrifty Vermonter, that's saying something--- might have had to do with the tears streaming down my face as I contemplated my withered sweet peas.*

a shallow happy post

It's finally raining. After watching the earth crack and split in MARCH, I think it's fabulous. We went grocery shopping last night, as we have guests this weekend, and the house is temporarily clean-- what with our two dogs, our guests' dog, and the fact that wet dogs bring in half the earth on their paws, it won't be that way for long, but hey, that's what vaccuums are for.

And it's Friday. Faboulous, fabulous Friday.

Not to mention I got my biannual clothing allowance, and there's a dress at Nordstrum's with my name all over it. AND ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. AND an unread Marie Claire.

I'm trying to think of something deep here, but all I'm coming up with is whee!!!!

Have a good time in the rain, chickens.

randomly

I don’t know if this is true—but according to a book I recently read, astronauts never come back from a voyage to space as atheists.

Makes sense to me.

Huzzah, Huzzah

This morning, the metro was empty and the daily newspapers were stacked high. Not very many people came to work today. But at lunch, the streets were crowded because everyone who is a work is going outside.

Hurrah for spring!

by Maggie Owens

An epicure, dining at Crewe,
Found quite a large mouse in his stew,
Said the waiter, 'Don't shout,
And wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one too!

calling all women to answer the question below!

I never thought writing would be so...public. But girls, I got to get 50 comments on the great panty debate (see previous post). So send your friends here!

Don't have an answer? SAY THAT! I CAN USE THAT!

many, many, many thanks.

****the great panty debate****

Ladies (ONLY):

Ladies:

I am planning to send out letters to various women's magazines asking
them to assign me an article of great national significance: the best
panties for all different butts.

It has come to my attention that so often I spend ten or so bucks of
my hard-earned cash on a cute pair of panties, only to find that they
bag in the butt, dip too low in the front, or fail to reach around my
admittedly sizable ba-toot.

do you have a pair of underwear that fits perfectly, with no butt-sagging, panty lines, or love-handle amputation? Post a comment and tell me your age, size, and the brand/make of underwear.

And if you don't, say that too.

Come on. Just do it.

Cheers!

One the first day of spring

Let's face it:

given last week's eighty degree temperatures and tomorrow's wintry mix, spring is a'coming.

Given the fact I spent my Saturday watching my younger sister deflect very fast, very yellow, and very small balls during her lacrosse playday, spring is a'coming.

Given that my sweet peas are once again RUINING MY LIFE by being WHINY LITTLE #$#^^@!s, spring is here :)

just for kicks:

One Third Of The Calendar

In January everything freezes.
We have two children. Both are she'ses.
This is our January rule:
One girl in bed, and one in school.

In February the blizzard whirls.
We own a pair of little girls.
Blessings upon of each the head ----
The one in school and the one in bed.

March is the month of cringe and bluster.
Each of our children has a sister.
They cling together like Hansel and Gretel,
With their noses glued to the benzoin kettle.

April is made of impetuous waters
And doctors looking down throats of daughters.
If we had a son too, and a thoroughbred,
We'd have a horse,
And a boy,
And two girls
In bed.

Ogden Nash

on being young and married

To be young and to get married, and to not be a Baptist, an innocent, or pregnant, is seldom seen. And we are not doing the young hip thing. We live in a rented Cape Cod with a big yard for our dogs and hardwood floors and a fireplace for us. Last Saturday, we lounged on our bed playing Trivial Pursuit from the early 1980s until the grand old hour of ten o’clock.
We like our soft sheets. I am planting a flower garden. Yesterday, my husband polished my grandmother’s silver salt and pepper set, and I thought my heart would crack open with love.
I have done the young angst thing, complete with cigarettes and greasy food and spiky dyed hair.
And you know, this is better. The clean counter of our kitchen luminous in the morning sun, the long couch bought with a Christmas bonus, the morning argument over who takes the first shower. I sleep well. I eat well. I take baths on Sunday afternoons and look at my knees, naked and loved, and I do not wish I were alone.
I do not think we love each other more than anybody else in the world. The only difference I can see is that we did not creep towards marriage, we did not decide to give up our cherished independence, but instead we worked for it, yearned for it, and now that we are here, we are so very glad.
But we are newlyweds, clocking in at six months this Saturday. The real achievement will not be staying in love—for who can do that, anyway?— or even just staying together—because we all know those couples who sleep in separate beds and don’t talk to each other—but instead, staying really married, past those periods of intense dislike and general apathy and towards an overall harmonious partnership.
Wish us luck ;)

A story:

M. told me her life story while we were driving to Huntsville, Alabama for the Dixie Rugby Tournament in her gold beater of a car.

"Daddy left," she began. I nod. This I know. "Mama married this fool, and our house burned down."

My house is made of stone, but I still nod. Her accent is long and nasal, as east Tennessee as you get.

"The fool decided to convert the barn into a house with the insurance money, but ain't no money in the world could've turned that barn into a nice house," she continues. "Anyway, he was beating on my Mama, and so we locked him outside and called 911. You know, it takes 45 minutes for the police to get to our house."

I bat my eyes to express sympathy.

"And let me tell you 'bout my brothers," M. says. She twists and yanks up her shirt over her back. There's a heart with two names on her left shoulder blade.

"One ran around all the time in high school. He got girls pregnant, did e all the time, and then he ups and becomes a Jehova's Witness. Can't even talk to him anymore, he's all the time Jesus this and Jesus that."

I have no brothers.

"The other, he's my sweetie, my bitty baby brother J., and I just love him. He about died when I left for college. You know how I decided to go to Vanderbilt?"

I shake my head. How did I decide?

"We watched this movie in 8th grade that I thought was awesome, can't even remember what it was about, but it was produced by Vanderbilt. So I worked my ass off-- no one thought I was smart cos I hung out with all the black kids-- but I ended up valedictorian and got a full-ride here."

Wow, I say. That's amazing.

"I thought so, but no one in my county had ever gone anywhere 'cept the U of Tennessee. Why do you want to go to Vanderbilt? they'd ask. They don't got very good football. I'd say, do I look like I play football, you jackass?"

She kinda does.




Epilogue: she's doing graduate research in psychology about aggression and schizophrenia, and she has married a black man even taller than she is named Brown.

listen up, y'all.

On Saturday evening, I found myself sitting in front of a fire with my best friend leaning against my feet as we regaled a World Bank renaissance man with our tales of woe-- namely that all of our fancy education barely qualified us for entry-level jobs.

And we have a point. But my amused husband and friend looked on with indulgence at the two over-priviledged white girls, recalling student loans and the juggling of 30-hr-a-week jobs with classes, and you know, they had no sympathy.

(Ironically, they make way, way more than either me or my friend do. But they work at the same place so the statistics are biased.)

Cheers to having options, my friends. I could: join the Peace Corp, work on an organic farm, move to NYC and get a financial services internship, move to a small town and become a reporter...etc, etc, etc. I get to choose what color I want to paint my bathroom, and in the last two weeks I have spent countless hours hunting down the right pair of ballet flats.

I tire of people telling me they have no options. Go on. Make an actual list of all things you could conceivably do. If you have more than one, you've got choices, baby.

Danny and Annie

When I lived in Vermont, I had no clock, so in one of his magnificent care packages, K. sent me one, complete with a radio alarm, for I hate to wake to a buzzer.

Now it's by our bed. This morning, it went off at 6.50, and NPR flooded the room loud and clear. Usually one of us hits it, but this morning, we listened to this project called Story Corp. Apparently there is a New Jersey man named Danny who loves to talk to Story Corp about his wife, Annie.

He was described as a bald toothless gnome of a man, and his voice was pure grit, but he spoke tenderly about how much he loves his wife. Apparently he's done this so often that Danny and Annie are now the "faces"-- or voices rather-- of Story Corp. My favorite was when he said being married is like having a color television-- you don't ever want to go back.

Of course, they are re-visiting the story of Danny and Annie because Danny has cancer, and is expected to die soon. He says he doesn't expect to live, but he and Annie talk often of hope-- hope for her future after he's gone.

There are not enough men or women who wear their heart on the sleeves, and it is so exhilerating to see someone do so. Embarrassing, of course, especially for us Wasps. But exhilerating nonetheless.

Check their pics out at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5230164

HAPPY THOUGHTS

you can always just go to bed.

bathtubs.

somewhere, the sun is shining.

spring is coming.

there are many beautiful shades of bubblegum pink tonenail polish.

george bush can not be president longer than his term (thank you, mr. roosevelt.)

tulip bulbs.

the earth will run out of oil. (YEAH! WOOHOO! WHAT WILL WE DO NEXT?)

saturday could involve: french toast, coffee, a grapefruit, a walk.

celebrities and their oh-so-traumatic lives.

all-girl bookclubs.

dogs and people who like dogs.

thunderstorms.

screen porches.

three-day weekends.

swimming in a sun-warmed lake.


kisses chickies!

heads' up!

Why is it that lists of things to do before you die include items such as:

write the great american novel
learn to speak french
travel to the great wall of china

and so on.

right now, i have several ambitions, and they look like this:

learn to make slipcovers
get our taxes done
plan interesting lunches for next week, so my husband doens't have to eat dinty moore out of a can (which is really very good, but also very much like canned dog food).
keep writing my not-the-great-america-novel
get something done to my eyebrows

and so on :)

nonetheless, i firmly beleive that it is important to keep in mind those things you'd really LIKE to accomplish, as opposed to the ones you kinda have to accomplish (read taxes).

so think, people, think, and then do what i do best: list. because if you're like me, you might forget.

V Day Approaches

I have never really been single. Not something that's couth to say, but it's true-- I counted up the months in high school, and there were 8-- combined-- of singleness, and then in college, well, the minute I broke up w/my highschool boyfriend I was madly in love with K.

But depite all my years of coupledom, I've never had a truly superb Valentine's Dy. Or even a romantic one. My old boyyfriend paid for Chinese take-out once. And back BEFORE I was with K., he sent me some really beautiful tea that made me very angry at Chinese-take-out boyfriend.

Why am I telling you this? Because I am boldly shattering the myth that all couples have February 14ths filled with teddy bears, massage oils, and romantic dinners. Actually, I've always thought the single versions of V-day sounded great-- chick flick, pajamas, and chocolate. Mmmm. Chick flicks. A moive without 1: really awesome special effects 2: loud noises and spilling intestines and 3: car chases that supposedly make up for the complete lack of plot and ridiculous dialogue.

In essence, Valentine's Dy is a day of loathing for Singles and Smug Marrieds alike-- because all it does is higlight what's not there*. So buy your chocolate, and call your mom. She'll be glad to hear from you.

Peace out chickens

* I am blessed with a very romantic husband-- who nonetheless has a deep, deep aversion to being told what to do and when to do it.

Getting to the Golden Years

Kagan and I have been talking a lot these days about retirement. By the by, I am a champion worrier, and really, I can freak out about the most far-off event, even if I don't know that it will happen. We had the kids conversation BEFORE we started dating, and the remarraige post-death conversation less than a month after our wedding.

But anyway, retirement. The idea of having enough money to do nothing for twenty odd years of my life strikes me as some strange pot-of-gold urban legend, but I am assured that it is possible (especially with compound interest) if I get off my butt and open a Roth IRA.

Here's what retirement looks like for me: I have a place to live that I like, and I can quit my day job. (With any luck, I can retire in five years :) ) To accomplish this, I need to make a lot of money and stash it away, manipulating the tax system like silly putty.

So how did anyone ever retire? Come on, I know there were old people before social security came and went. How did they live? Did they starve? Did they just drop dead in the fields? Were adult children nicer? Did you die rather than go to the doctor/hospital?

I have to say I'm not really sure.

What's In A Name?

I like my name. I like my husband's name. I think a fair bit about names.


top 10 names in 2005 (in order of popularity):

Emma Emily Madison Kaitlyn Sophia Isabella Olivia Hannah Makayla Ava

Aidan Jacob Ethan Nicholas Matthew Ryan Tyler Jack Joshua Andrew


I confess I'm a big fan, especially when you compare them to the '80s:


Jennifer Jessica Amanda Melissa Sarah Nicole Heather Amy Michelle Elizabeth

Michael Jason Christopher David James Matthew John Joshua Robert Daniel


And just for kicks, let's look at the 60's:


Mary Susan Karen Maria Lisa Linda Donna Patricia Debra Deborah

David Michael John James Robert Mark William Richard Thomas Steven


The weirdest thing of all? Savannah, which is the name my sister and I duel over, is n. 47 on the 2005 list.

All the good names are taken (pout, flounce-off).

Just for kicks: Things I Don't Believe In ctd.

nuclear power

living together pre-marriage

mean men

pantyhose

sweaters with faces on them (read santa clause, reindeer, etc.)

deficit spending

this crazy, crazy idea that opening up that one last tiny piece of Alaska will somehow save us from foreign oil dependence (really-- look at a map.)

being bad at your job

vegetarianism

lunching with co-workers you don't really like

annual letters about how great your family is (oh, mom and i had so much fun with this one. we'd compose them in the car. this year, dad moved four times, the septic tank erupted into the library, alexe got two speeding tickets and went to three driving schools, eliza began bathing regularily, and oh, our dog died.)

negativity :)

cheerio children.

Things I Don't Believe In:

educational software for children

peeled carrots

ADD

ADHD

eggs, potatoes, and dairy being bad for you

eloping

NOT having engagement bling

George Bush

people who want to ban abortion-- especially men

atheism, agnosticsm, and Unitarianism* (*if my understanding of this denomination is correct)

Will Farrell and all of Will Farrell's movies

Napoleon Dynamite, while we're at it

war-- with an exception of defensive wars

poorly written chick lit books

Montessori school for kids under the age of 4-- unless you're clear that you just want them out of the house

divorcing because you're just not in love anymore

owning a hot tub

"finding" yourself

frosting in a can

prudes (read: people who don't like dogs, who can't handle a little dirt, who have never roughhoused)

the public school system

having to go to graduate school

our gross miserliness towards teachers

pale bloated men who work 12 hours a day WHILE having a family

having to have curtains

piano lessons, soccer teams, etc. for children under the age of 5 (unless they beg you because they actually really want to)

buying furniture, blinds, cars, and clothes on credit

SUVs with the exception of TRUCKS for FARMERS, not: college students, teenagers, soccer moms, or corporate honchos

the stock market

this strange notion that America is superior to Europe, especially with regards to our economy (oh, i'll take you down on this one. Just ask.)

oh-so-literary fiction

EFFICIENCY

roads without sidewalks

strip malls

going to a new place and shopping at the same 100 retail stores found across America

Yogilates


but as always, I close with the fact that I really do love my dishwasher.

san diego

Chickens, I am off to San Diego, and I am trying not to lose or forget everything I own (coversation in my head: did i pack a sweater? No. damn. I'm going to freeze again, just like I did in Capri. Well, who cares-- all I really have to do is remember my passport. Don't LOSE my passport, not before I get to the airport, or while AT the airport like last time.)

So once again, peace out chickens.

peace out, chickens

I heard a story the other day about a hippie-ish do-gooder who started a community garden in the slums of D.C. He was harvesting one summer afternoon when a group of children approached him and began asking questions, like what's that? and what are you doing? and are you crazy?

After some friendly banter, he pulled out carrots. It had the same effect as a magician producing a white rabbit out of a hat, because they'd never really thought about things growing in the ground.

Seeing this, the hippie-ish do-gooder asked, "What other things grow in the ground?"

One small boy ventured, "spaghetti?"

I don't understand how fax machines work. I don't understand how computers or telephones or nail polish remover works. Until two years ago, I had no idea where garlic or cloves or mustard came from. I'm confused by our facts of life, such as concrete and grocery stores and cublicles.

But you know, I really do love my dishwasher.

Eleanor Rigbys

“This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
--Douglass Adams

back to food

Fact: Kagan and I spend roughly ten percent of our take-home pay on food. (And our take-home pay doesn't count the 401k or mortgage or insurance or metrocheks.)

Fact: in 1900, the average family spent nearly half their income on food.

Half.

Also, we really do it up in the grocery stores. Luckily, my more frugal half gets most things on sale, but we still have grapefruits and Gruyere and organic milk and antibiotic-free chicken. What did that half include in 1900?

My point is: food is cheap.

This isn't a popular point these days, what with all the talk of low-income people being forced to consume the 25-cent donut sticks and honeybuns. It's true that while all food is cheap, bad food is even cheaper. Perhaps that's because it doesn't come from anything real, who knows, or that so many people buy it that they can produce with economies of scale. I don't know. But I digress.

Food is cheap.

And really, with more people in America and way, way, way fewer farmers, where does it all come from?

Snippet

I am a snoop; ergo, I love biographies. Not the boring oh-he-did-do-many-important-things ones, but more like the he hated his mother, loved his wife, and took baths every Monday evening ones.

So, shamelessly stealing from the Writer's Almanac: a man named Robinson Jeffers was born today in the early 1900s. Though from Pennsylvania, he went to boarding schools all through Europe, including Geneva, Zurich, and (!) Vevey. By the age of 19, he had completed his undergrad, studied philosophy in Europe, and enrolled in the USC medical school. But, after 3 years, he dropped out and enrolled in forestry school in Washington State. And dropped out of that too.

Meanwhile, he's been having an affair with a married lady named Uma. They met when he was 18 and she was 21. She divorced her husband and they married in 1913, at the ages of 24 and 27 respectively.

Ah, the drama. Don't you just love it? She throws away her marriage to a prominent Los Angeles lawyer to marry this boy. How does anyone see this working?

Also meanwhile, he publishes his first book of poetry, "Flagons and Apples" the year before they marry.

So, he keeps writing poetry, they have a baby girl who dies in infancy, they move to Carmel, and in 1916 (27 and 30 respectively) they have twin boys and Jeffers builds them a stone cottage. Later, he add on a 40 foot stone tower, and they spend the rest of their lives there. His critically-acclaimed career comes in 1924 with the publication of "Tamar and Other Poems."

Uma dies of cancer in late middle age and Jeffers doesn't hang on terribly long after that.

And this morning I didn't even know there was ever a Robinson Jeffers.

See his picture here:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/J/JeffersRobin/images/JeffersRobin.jpg

And the tower here:
http://www.gesc.ttu.edu/Fac_pages/Yoshinobu/RJ/HT_westface_c1925.jpg

and by request, a poem:

To The Stone-Cutters

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.

from Tamar (1920-1923)

sex, medieval-style

In our culture, men are the lustful sex.

Think about that. Agree? If you don't, come on. On TV, women are the ones turning down men's advances...or if you're a Scrubs fan, Turk is contantly nagging Carla for sex, and she's constantly turning him down (remember that time when she says " if you do ___, i'll fufill that fantasy you've always wanted," and he says, "really?" and she says, "yeah, but not with th whip or the silly clothes," and he says, "so normal sex then?" and she says, "if I don't fall asleep first," and he says ok.)

well, in medieval times, women were widely regarded as the lustful sex. Really. Medieval man had the whole madonna-whore complex big-time, but the problem was, a married woman who was totally faithful could still be considered whorish for interest in sex. Bt I digress. The thing that really made me think about this was when I was doing research for a paper and found a primary document that was written by a priest. It had advice about family matters.

This priest told husbands to regularily bed their wives. But why? To procreate? To become closer as a couple? No. The priest stated that women were so base and lustful that they needed constant satisfaction from their men, or they would err and stray. He goes on to use words like "responsability," "duty", and "favour."

That's all mediveal women needed-- men "doing them a favour."

Of course, we've now flipped the other way, and our culture thinks that wives, live-ins, and girlfriends have a duty to keep their man sated and happy. That's why we have the "999 ways to blow his mind" every month in Cosmo. And how many cheating husbands tell their girlfirends that their wives won't have sex anymore?

I'm trying awfully hard not to get bogged down in who's right. I just think it's weird that six hundred years ago, women were perceived as the earthy base sex. I wonder if they had a football and beer equivalent too.

If you're my age
and if you're destined to be an old man/lady
who weds a boy/girl twenty-five years younger than you
then your future spouse won't even be born
until 2007!

appropos of nothing much

I relate months to hours. Apparently, most people don't do this, but bear with me. I think of June as 6 o'clock and October as ten. So now, the minute hand is wavering towards midnight, and boom, we'll be in a new year.

Of course, I also have a lag in my head. So it's astonishing to wake up and realize that instead of 8:30ish, it's really almost January, 2006. I also can't reliably remember that my sister is now 18, even though I've been helping her with her college applications.

We pay a lot of attention to time. We have major milestones that are based on age-- 13, 16, 18, 21, and the dreaded 40-- and others based on duration-- 2 years, 4 years (think politics) and 30 years (think retirement). I work 8 to 4. I have an hour for lunch. I try to do cardio for x amount of time (ain't telling all my secrets).

This seems a bit artificial and contrived to me, but on the other hand, it's dependable, and it lends our lives some kind of framework. I hate that whole "work until you think you've worked enough" kind of attitude because it makes me feel guilty-- frankly, couldn't we all always go a bit farther? I like knowing exactly how far it is to the finish line.

So, on Sunday, it'll be a new year. The clock will be re-set. 12 months to accomplish all of our good intentions.

babies, babies, babies.

fun fact: in some species of wasps, unfertilized eggs become males and fertilized ones become females.

Nature seems to have a lot of variety. Male seahorses bear the babies. Some frogs flip flop back and forth and fertilize themselves. Some pregnancies last thirty days and some last over a year. Some babies are just fetuses, who need a lot of shelter and care (e.g. us and the kangaroo), while others emerge self-sufficient (fish, snakes). And then you have the baby moose, manatee, and elephant, who come ito this world able to keep up with their mother, but still needing her. That's called "precocial," by the by.

I like this: Emperor penguines, the largest of the bunch, have a fairly equitable division of labor. The female lays one egg, which the male then puts his feet under and his fat tummy on top. He then stays there for two months! Losing up to 25 lbs! The mother comes back to feed and raise the newly-born chick, all fattened up from her feeding vacation.

I make things collide all the time, and nothing as cool as penguins results.

thursday thoughts

Question: is work someplace they have to pay you to go, or is it an important piece of your identity?

Here in white-collar America, it's pretty unfashionable to work 9 to 5, go home, and not think about the office until you drag yourself out of bed the next morning. No, indeed. My peers are passionate about their non-profit advocacy jobs (this being D.C.) or intense in their ambition to climb to the top of the finance heap. I don't have a problem with this, not really, although I wonder how they're going to fit in children a few years down the line.

At this point in my life, they most definitely have to pay me to go to work. I leave the moment I can, take nothing home with me, and yearn for the weekend Monday to Friday. That being said, I don't hate my job. It's fine. It leaves me with the mental space for my "real" life.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, after all.

Christmas Is Coming (the geese are getting fat)

Christmas. As a recently married couple, my sweetie and I have had a few talks about what Christmas has been like for us and how we want it to be in the future. On Saturday night, in the parking lot of IKEA, I found out that he never believed in Santa Claus, which astounds me. I was convinced that Santa Claus existed until I was eleven.

And ya know, why not? If fax machines exist, why can't a guy who gets around to all the priviledged houses in the world in a single night? Why the heck not?

How do you know, anyway? People who declare that there is no God, faeries, miracles, evolution, etc. remind me of all those people who thought that tomatoes were poisonous (the Devil's apples, they were called).

Well, maybe that doesn't work. Because I can't prove to you the existence of any of the above, but tomatoes really aren't poisonous. Mmm, tomatoes. I really was born to be Italian.

But anyway, my point is this: I don't know. You don't know. And I want my kids to not know either, which is why I will "lie" to them and tell them that their presents come from a man with a snowy beard, a big stomach, and an ability to wiggle down chimneys.

My Buddies

I love whales. I have never seen one, but I love them.

The blue whale is the biggest whale ever. Until people invented the steam engine, no one could hunt them, because they were too big and too fast. The heart of a blue whale is the size of a VW beetle.

So in other words, they're massive. They eat only krill, tiny little shrimpy things, and they migrate from the poles to the equator and then back again... but the interesting thing is, there are northern hemisphere blue whales and southern hemisphere blue whales who never meet because they frequent different poles. And even though they're loners, scientists think that they can communicate literally across the globe because of the high frequency or some such thing of their voices. Isn't that cool? "Hey Blue, how's the eating up there?"

Blue whales are my favorite.

Some countries and peoples, such as Japan and the Inuit, still hunt whale. It's monitored and such with quotas and all that. But still, a DNA analysis of the whale meat in a Japanese market showed several forbidden whale types, including my favorite, the blue whale.

Imagine a whale dying. That huge, big body drifting slowly down to the sea floor. Apparently, there are whole life systems that thrive on a dead whale. It's an ecosystem down there, with species that are not found elsewhere.

I find that comforting.

Apparently the Navy does these training exercises at sea that emits noises that are billions of times louder than what the whales can stand. Whales are found beached and bleeding from the ears after such exercises.

This makes me very, very sad. Sure, the Navy needs to practice or whatever, but really people, about how many things can we say, this is our right, no matter what or who it hurts?

Here's a pic of my buddies off the Baja coast:

Evolution

(disclaimer: I am so, so not a scientist.)

But I am historically minded. I have always been interested in looking at how things are and how they got to be that way. You can look at almost everything in the world this way.

How did we get here?

The southern forests are choked with kudzu, creeper, and-- most notably at my mother's farm- multi flora.

How did we get here?

The chesnut trees died. My learned sweetie tells me that the toxins in their leaves choked undergrowth. Plus throw in our habit of importing foreign plants that become invasive (multi flora and kudzu are courtesy of Japan) and there you go, forests that you can barely hack your way through.

Add things like the demise of the Carolina parakeets, flocks of small brightly colored birds who in their heyday ate tons and tons of things like cockleburs, the small green pods that stick to your pants.

Coyotes are moving father east than they've been before.

The Appalachians used to have a similar-sized predator known as the grey wolf, also now defunct courtesy of us.

A filling-in of the natural chain? Evolution in the making?

Why not?

But it doesn't stop with science.

This weekend I was in a car with some very fun, very far-left liberal friends of mine. The kind of people who won't buy things made in China, eat meat with antibiotics, and who help the homeless, the jailed, and the poor. I like them very much, though I'm a bit more square.

But they lit up a pipe in the car with the windows closed and me, a known non-pot-smoker, inside.

How did we get here?

Then the grocery store, my favorite source for ponderings. When you look at the lunch-meat aisle, think back to our Neanderthal ancestors, Adam and Eve, and the question still applies.

How did we get here?

anti-american mutterings

In the last three months, I have driven my car maybe 5 times. This is because I can now take the metro to work.

I love it. I love, love, love not driving my car.

Ergo, it makes sense that I love places that don't have cars. Stop. Think. A place, a town, without cars?

Oh yes, my friend. Venice, for one. I love Venice for many reasons... The good food, the hidden piazzas, the leaning flaking buildings. And the delivery boats, that unload crates of vegetables and dish detergent and beer so that strong men with wheel-cart things can take them away.

And Gimmelwald, CH, is a hamlet of 130 people without a grocery store and without cars. You have to take a cable car or walk to get there. How magnificent is that?

I am aware that I am one of a yuppie crowd that abhor progress. We turn our nose up at subdivisions, the Dow Jones, and all the myriad time-savers of modern life. I am also aware that people generally say that the people we venerate (e.g. the ones who live on the top of a mountain) advocated for progress, for electricity, dishwashers, and frosting in a can.

But I wonder.

p.s. I have been taught that the washing machine did more for the emancipation of women than anything else. And I'm all for washing machines. Just so you know.