bother

There's a good reason, I guess, that I've always used flickr for image hosting for pics shown here: trying to upload direct to the blog is giving me fits of frustration!! Blogger, my picture is horizontal, quit flipping it on is side, why don't ya?! Gah.

Which picture, you ask? Well, the one that sums up a nice little post I have fading in my head, about our camping trip last week, about my boy (who is a dear and -almost- everything he does charms me wholly), about a moment I want to remember.

So maybe I can figure out the trouble and try again later. I feel thwarted from every direction these days, like the dumbest details are more complicated than they should be and why bother anyway?

psst. . .

I'm still here. (that old refrain). I let my flickr account expire and while I still have a smidge of storage space available for my demoted-back-to-free account's monthly storage allotment, I must say that the limit is looming over me like the clouds which will, surely, roll in soon enough here. But right now, lately, it's all blue skies and soft breezes and the most perfect last hurrah weather ever before Fall sets in. I like all of the seasons, but the change from Winter to Spring and then the following cusp between Summer and Autumn enchant me, woo me, win me most of all.

And what does an expired pro flickr account (does the 'pro' label make you chuckle down deep like it does me? maybe pro for prolific, but if it's pro for professional, then i guess they've overestimated the effect of pandering to one's hopeful aspirations, because my quick, unpracticed snaps are as amateur as they get) have to do with not posting in this little bloggy space? Nothing, really, just that the pictures are out of synch now and I don't remember what I wanted to write about or punctuate with a photo, anyway.

This weekend has seen (so far, it's only Saturday, after all), so many diced tomatoes and coaxing a kitten back from the brink of death. I might share more, later, about the former but regarding the latter, let it be known that the healing properties of a young, tenderhearted girl can not be discounted and don't believe everything a veterinarian office tells you, anyway. Little Binx took a real bad turn the other day and, after strong antibiotics and zero response, the same little cat we were at somber "keep comfortable" stage with yesterday, is purring happily, bright-eyed, on my husband's lap right now. It's amazing what a difference a day can make.

And, now, instead of doing something necessary and practical like emptying the memory card on the rebel or washing the rest of the dinner dishes or finding a home for all that laundry on the rocking chair in my bedroom, I think it's going to be Season 2 of Big Love on the portable dvd player, in the bed with the lights out, and maybe a cup of bedtime tea. Oh, it's herbal tea and I brush my teeth first.

veritable smorgasbord

Hold onto your hat, because I'm about to reveal something astonishing. But, in true april-fashion, I'll give the whole languid segue first, the meandering backstory that has you tapping your foot and hoping I hurry up and get to the point already. In this case, it's that I have a nasty habit of comparing everything in terms of Oregon and Arizona. I don't mean to stack such different places against each other in some neverending, unfair battle, but being that I've lived, in my current adult family life set-up, in only those two distinct places, it's hard not to be always making notes, keeping score. But since we only lasted in Arizona for just shy of three years and hightailed it back to the beaver state at first chance (arguably a tad bit too hasty, perhaps), it's easy to guess which state is winning. I love Oregon best and did a shoddy job of hiding my favor while we were in Phoenix, at the expense, I fear, of being something of an Oregon-snob. I didn't mean to curtail every conversation with a haughty, "well, in Oregon. . . " but, it might have gone a little something like that.

So, within that context, you might be surprised to know that I have found something that is unequivocally, without contest, better in Arizona.

The State Fair.

Maybe you're not the fair going type and you don't so much care for any of them. But I'm fond of any place I can wallow around in the sort of base people watching I love best, with canned goods and handicrafts and baby goats, to boot. I love the idea behind the fair, bringing out your best to show off at summer's end. I try not to notice all the airbrushed t-shirts and deep fried on a stick monstrosities, but those have a special place as some kind of modern/retro sociological evidence, too, I suppose.

We went to the Oregon Fair this past Sunday. It showered off an on and we sure did get wet. And despite soggy hair and having to hide the camera away from rain drops (and missing out on the best pics), we had a fine time. Great, even. It was great and enjoyable and all of that. BUT! I couldn't help wishing I was in Arizona. Well, not exactly, since the state fair there doesn't happen until the first week of October (when it's less likely to hit a solid 110 by late afternoon).

The difference between the two events is exactly the reverse of what you'd expect, or at least, the opposite of what fits tidily into my general sweeping judgments these two places I've called Home.

There are more vendors, more stuff for sale, more Super Amazing! products, hands down, at the Oregon fair and remarkably fewer handmade items and canned foods and acrylic yarn afghans on display here. There seems to be, in Oregon, a stronger representation from 4-H groups and not a lot of offerings from independent children. This was disappointing. It was thrilling two years ago to be wandering up and down through the children's art exhibits and see other students from my girl's same art teacher. (as a really random aside: we miss her art classes almost more than we miss anything else. If Larry every stumbles on this humble blog here, I implore him to move within a doable drive of my little house. ha!). Of course, we weren't expecting to find any familiar names among the photographs and textiles, but we also weren't expecting to see such a puny offerering. Like, no collections! In Arizona, there's a whole building dedicated to showing off of individuals' collections: stamps and kewpie dolls and whatever else you think someone might collect and want to show off, in glass display cases, in a dusty fairground building. I totally eat that stuff up.

And there's stuff for sale in Arizona, don't get me wrong, and sleepy toothless carnies heckling to win one for the kiddies, but that ilk pales in contrast to the cake decorating demonstrations and mineral exhibits and hands-on activities for children. It's not even that I'm opposed to a hefty dose of Fair Only! For Sale specials, super absorbent shammy cloths and quick and brite cleaner and, may my Grandmother rest in peace, the Vita Mix mixer. Seriously, about the Vita-Mix: I have in my possession, but not in current use, a stainless steel vintage seventies jobbie that mimics, precisely, the same lovely unit that my father uses every day and which he purchased at the State Fair of New Mexico before I was even born. Since you don't know my dad at all, you'll have to trust me when I tell you that any appliance that withstands his use on a daily basis for three decades is worth whatever exorbitant price it might have cost at the time. Now, my old vita-mix is not functional, it's been a couple years since I used it regularly (the Oster blender from Target I picked up is a sad, sad replacement) and I miss it. So it was with great interest and true enthusiasm that I stood in the crowd and watched the VitaMix guy whiz up cabbage and fruit and ice and whatever else into something "like sorbet" and then wait, impatiently, for my own tiny paper cup sample.

I love the Fair!

But for all my excitement, there was something lacking the other day. The carnival rides were embarrassing. I mean, let me state right now that if I were the CEO of Funtastic Rides in Portland, I'd be embarrassed. The Ferris Wheel, so small! A State Fair begs for one of those Giant Wheels, the ones that goggle eyes and make children second guess their own bravery in line. But the wheel at the Oregon Fair was the same wheel you might see at any neighborhood carnival and was, I am almost certain, the exact wheel that stood over the carnival of my little town's summer festival. Little town carnivals and State Fair carnivals should not be the same and while I know any midway is nothing but many variations on the same spinning theme, a good midway will at least entice a nine year old and I can tell you right now that my nine year old was not enticed at all, but rode along on the roundy roundy dumptruck ride and the upsie downsie firetruck ride on account of pleasing her little brother.

The corn we bought was boiled, not roasted. The nerve! We pack our own snacks, generally, but might be tempted into one or two little things that don't entirely upset our gastronomical sensibilities. We shared a piece of pie but even the kettle corn seemed inferior (we walked by).

Man, who even thinks about one state's fair versus another? And then writes about it? You'd think it was somebody who didn't have anything else to do, and not some person trying to play big money, big money (or at least, higher number, higher number!) with the pedometer and who just printed out a recipe for pita bread and is going to try to make some now, on account of having all that hummus whizzed up in the fridge and nothing to eat it with.

the numbers don't lie

Didn't fast food restaurants start handing out pedometers instead of french fries a few years ago? I seem to recall a marketing blitz direct from the golden arches down to the hoi polloi about step counting. I'm not much for the company of Grimace and Ronald, though, so I can't be sure. I do think that it's been a while since these little gadgets were everywhere and while I like to pretend I'm ahead of the trends (all day aprons, wait for it!), sometimes I roll into the party seconds before last call (uh, Facebook, anyone?).

I guess I'm just curious about how much I walk every day. I *feel* busy. I fall into bed sometimes and think I haven't sat down much all day. But perception is a tricky beast and it was time for some sort of tangible evidence. The husband picked up this little pedometer for me months ago, but I didn't get around to opening it up and trying it out until yesterday.

I didn't remember to clip it on until after I'd changed out of my pajamas, so I missed the whole fixing breakfast, starting the morning hour. And then I tried to forget about it. It's really tiny so that was easy to do. I wanted to see what a normal day was like. Give or take.

"They" say 10,000 steps is a decent goal, right? I don't know for whom this goal is decent, for your averagely healthy and fit person? For someone with a strict appointment with every judge show on daytime television and the world's largest collection of empty dorito bags? Who? I guess it's just an average person.

I must be pretty average, then. By the time bedtime drew close, I was just topping out over ten thousand. Which means that I'm not sedentary (I think I knew that already) but that I should probably make a higher goal, if I want this to be about improved fitness.

Although if I'm being candid here (which, frankly, uh, this isn't my completely candid place and I'm all about the soft focus lens here, so I might still shoot from the hip, but it's cotton balls I'm shooting, I think.) then I'll admit that I didn't hit the 10K mark today. It was a drive into the city day, though, which eats up an hour each way of my time and gives my wallet, and not my legs, a good run. I sat on a blanket, or stood in the shade, at the park and chatted with other mothers of my persuasion and watched the children play. A nice afternoon, but not much walking. I really did think I'd make it up come dinner making and house tidying and all the other things that happen around here in the evening, but I didn't. Maybe on account of some not-what-we-were-hoping for news today there was a thick, oozy pall cast, stepping through which took considerable effort.

I'll give it a go again tomorrow. Clip the little ticker on my pocket and see what happens. Oddly, even though I haven't really tried yet to amend my normal stepping, wearing the pedometer has already made me more aware, somehow, of walking, how every regular old step can add up. And even if this information doesn't add one iota to my general fitness level, it's an interesting tidbit to throw around during awkward lulls in conversations. I don't suppose I can find a discrete little counter for totting up accidental non-sequiturs. Yeah, probably not.

crazy cat people

I've got such a backlog of blog entries taking up space in my brain (not paying rent, but I''m not committed enough to evict them) that I never got around to mentioning here (I don't think?) about the kitten I brought home for my girl on the Saturday before Memorial Day. If you know my girl, you know that she loves cats. Our old lumpy, furry feline, Cozy, came into our family (as an already grown and predictable cat) because the girl, when she was still just two years old, couldn't stop talking about getting a cat. But that was seven years ago and within the last several months, my girl started wishing audibly for "a little black kitten with green eyes to call me own" (insert your own fake Irish brogue). I flirted with the idea around the time of her 9th birthday, in January, but decided it wasn't the right time (I wasn't so sold on the idea myself). But once Spring inched into Summer, I knew there wouldn't be a better time, so I responded to a craigslist post and half an hour later (whisper out loud that you might want a kitten and they practically fall from the sky) we had a tiny (so tiny!) little Ozma. Named by the girl as a nod to one of her favorite book series, that little kitten is nearly full grown now. It's true what they say about kittens! They turn into cats, and fast! She was fuzzy when she was little but's so sleek now, like a panther; her green eyes turned yellower and yellower. And with two of them (and a dog, to boot, maybe don't get me started on the dog, we're at odds, and I feel no guilt at all because you know what? we've had her for eleven years and most marriages these days don't last so long) I thought we were at capacity. Full. Finished. The end.

But let's say it's a quarter til six on a Tuesday morning and your phone rings. You answer groggily, waking up from a weird dream about an overful animal shelter (no joke!) and hear, on the other end, your husband. And he doesn't know what to do. About the kitten he's holding. That he just pulled out of the engine compartment of his car. Because when he stopped for a red light, he heard mewing.

You tell him to bring it here. What else? And when he arrives back, at dawn, a few minutes later, you get a towel and some water and set the pitiful little animal up in the garage with the side door open (maybe it will go home?).

But pitiful, bony animals with fleas and weepy eyes, dull hair and lethargy don't have a home.

I posted adds on craigslist and no one answered (surprise!). We asked around and the neighbors didn't know anything. We left, as a overhanging question mark, the option of taking him to a shelter. We didn't need another cat! We just went, after nearly seven years, from one to two. Isn't that enough? But the shelters are so full! And we're such softies. It's true.

It's amazing what a little kindess and good food will do. And in a few days, the pitiful animal perked up and became a very normal little kitten, a sweet gray and white boy about (oh, I'm guessing here) ten weeks old. What we mistook for sickness was probably just hunger and today he's just as playful as any kitten. Just as playful but, oh, so much sweeter. Probably the sweetest little cat I've ever known.

The husband, who feels a particular bond from pulling him out from around a hot engine and burning up his own hand in the process, took to calling the little guy Tom Kitten. But I decided (with really no vote, sometiemes I just pound my gravel and say something is so) to call him Binx. Binx Bolling, but who can be so formal with a cat? The husband feels a special kinship from being the rescuer (no doubt the kitten would have died had he not been pulled out right then) but I felt a bond from first from being the namer (but, then, I'm a namer of all things and enjoy the process quite a lot, be it a kid or a cat or a car) and, later, because he really is sweeter than any cat I've yet to know.

He's in my lap as I type, filled-out and clear-eyed, fur clean and soft, whiskers starting to regrow (they were all singed off in the car), purring contentedly. The love-iest kitty of all lovey cats. It's been two weeks now since he's been here.

I think he's staying.

would i be crazy to get my own goat?

We got some bad news yesterday, not the bad news we were expecting, not the bad news that's always lurking around the corner and which we rarely talk about, no, this was bad news for which we were completely unprepared.

The goats at the nearby farm where we've been buying raw goat milk for the last several months or so are not producing anymore!! Goat milk season is over!!

Did you know goats produce seasonally? I should read up on the details before I open my trap about it, but I am going to guess that it's more difficult to sustain lactation with goats than it is for, say, cows. If we wanted cow milk, we'd still be up a creek, though, because the same farm has a waiting list for cow milk as long as my arm. But we made a choice to stop consuming cow dairy a decade ago and have no plans to start again. It's hard to compare something you can reference presently with something you barely remember from the past, but I think I like goat milk a lot better, anyway. Less, uh, cow-y. Ha! (You know how people dismiss goat dairy on account of its goatiness? well.)

I have not broken the news to the children yet. My daughter, especially, will take it hard. Sure we can start buying boxes of pasteurized Meyenberg again, but can you believe that inferior product is more expensive than what we were buying fresh, raw, local? I had my suspicions about raw milk when we started, but the taste difference is great. It will be hard to go back.

And, no, diapers on the line have nothing to do with an unexpected dearth of goat dairy, but I've already posted a couple picture-less entries in a row and so I threw that one in, just because. I took it on a day the sun finally came out last week, after bringing in several rain-soaked loads to be tossed, in defeat, into the electric dryer.

vault toilets vs. flush toilets

This isn't the blog entry I want to be writing, the one peppered with recent pictures and words selected with a moderate bit of care. But I keep getting to the end of the day and I find that I didn't have time, or the clear head, or the organization required to have remembered to pull photos off of the camera first, and it's not working out the way I really want it to, so I don't do anything at all.

What I'm really doing right now is buttoning up plans for September camping. Not one, but two trips in the works. The husband has already requested days off (days! plural! several, even! in a row!!) and now it's just up to me to decide on specific destinations.

We might stay, for our first little trip, at one of the large, sprawling coastal State campgrounds. We like one in particular for its easy beach access. The amenities that seem to draw other families, though, are lost on us, and, if I'm being direct here, maybe a little distracting. Yurt camping sounds fun (and roomy!) and we'd love to give it a go sometime, but as long as we have a dog and no place to leave her, it's the tent for us. And since we're in a tent and not a motor home with satellite and pull-outs, we don't need electricity. Most campgrounds have full hook-ups on some sites, some offer this at every site. We can skip it all together. Here's where the distraction comes in: nothing says camping like hearing your "neighbor's" rig blaring cable television. So while we're willing to overlook those things that obviously work and attract other people but which aren't necessary for us at all, we'd like to make our second September trip (and probably our last of the season) to someplace a little more remote and woodsy and private.

The problem with woodsy and private is that, more often than not, the bathroom situation is a little sketchy. I grew up camping with my grandparents in a little tear drop trailer pulled behind a big boat of a Buick and parked anyplace that looked like a good place to park. So my formative years were well acclimated into the custom of bathroom habits without bathrooms and it's not a problem or a phobia or anything of mine now. I don't need a nice bathroom and I certainly don't need a shower (while camping), but the truth is I'd almost rather have no bathroom than a port-a-potty. I don't have to describe the process to make you understand why it's so distasteful to me; I am going to assume that any reader feels the same way (except, possibly men, who can stand up and avoid touching the seat, if they wish, but would still have to hear that silent quiet falling sound and the terrible flat splashing that follows, but maybe my reaction to those sounds are my own strange quirk and not anything of concern to anyone else, man or no).

We want wooded trails for hiking and to hear the chipmunks and the birds calling for our crumbs and some kind of water nearby and all of those forest sounds muffled by the loamy hush of camping under evergreens, but not, if we can help it, the cartoon network.

When it comes down to it: I'd really prefer plumbing. But a hole in the ground can be good enough. And sometimes good enough really is that. It's not everything, it's not ideal, but it's something, and it's enough.

what do you do with the mad that you feel?

Well, today I made a phone call, sent an email and wrote a post card. But unless my local pbs affiliate makes a drastic change to the fall scheduling line-up, I'm still going to be mad.

I just learned that PBS will no longer be sending member stations the daily syndicate of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episodes, but simply one episode a week, for broadcast on Saturday mornings.

Then I discovered that individual stations could choose to get the daily episodes beforehand, or purchase them separately (I'm not completely clear on the protocol) and air them as they were intended: five days a week.

Surely my local station would take this option. Surely, in their commitment to quality programming and "viewers like me", they would choose to continue to dedicate the time, storage, cost and commitment involved to a longstanding gem like Mister Rogers instead of yet another short-lived animated disaster.

It seems like every fall, PBS parades out a few new shows, some of which stick around a while, but none like Mister Rogers.

When I spoke to someone in Member Services at OPB, she asked, "you do know that new episodes haven't been made in over fifteen years, right?"

"But," I countered, "new children are born every day!"

Giving Mr. Rogers the axe (and please, no patronizing reminders about how he'll still be aired on Saturday mornings, we all know that's where they put shows on pbs to die and by next year, he'll disappear completely) is like, well, like telling your Grandma to take her pecan pie and handmade quilts and stick it, you'd rather eat twizzlers with some chippie you met on the myspace. Which is to say, of course Mister Rogers is outdated, and thank goodness!

So you think I'm a sap who hates change, eh? I'm not opposed to all modernization, sometimes they surprise us with a worthwhile new program. And, my great disappointment regarding this terrible development is not steeped in nostalgia alone. Sure, I grew up watching Fred and the gang (did you know I even met Mr. McFeely a few years ago, had my picture taken with him and have a singed photo?), and yes, I recall with enormous fondness the eleven thirty time slot, during which my girl and I would snuggle up on the floor for a sweet half hour before lunch. But I currently value the presence of Mister Rogers in the life of my boy. I recognize the benefit the exposure to such a well-designed, gentle program has on any child who watches.

My personal warm fuzzies don't obscure the truth of Fred Rogers: he provides a safe place for children, where feelings are valid and important, where people are treated with respect, and conflicts are resolved peaceably, where grammar is correct and children are spoken to like they are intelligent and curious and capable (which they are!), and there are never last resorts for attention involving fart jokes and flashing lights. Maybe the fashions are dated. Maybe the guests are less relevant now (Yo Yo Ma instead of, say, Hannah Montana?). Maybe somebody thinks modern children aren't interested in how people make books (or balloons or shoes or toilets).

What will be offered in place of this kind grandfather of children's programming? How can they possibly take something so well loved and expected, so a part of our national public television culture, and kill it off with nary a vote or an apology or a carefully crafted eulogy? Did they think no one would care? I care. And I hope you do, too.

I urge you to call your local station. Send them a letter. Drop a postcard in the mail to PBS headquarters. It might not make a difference. But it's worth it to try.

You've Got To Do It

© 1969 Fred M. Rogers

You can make belive it happens,
Or pretend that something's true.
You can wish or hope or contemplate
A thing you'd like to do.
But until you start to do it,
You will never see it through.
'Cause the make-believe pretending
Just won't do it for you

(Chorus)
You've got to do it.
Every little bit
You've got to do it, do it, do it, do it
And when you're through,
You can know who did,
For you did it, you did it, you did it.

If you want to ride a bicycle
And ride it straight and tall.
You can't simply sit and look at it
"Cause it won't move at all.
But it's you who have to try it.
And it's you who have to fall (sometimes)
If you want to ride a bicycle
And ride it straight and tall.

(Chorus)
You've got to do it.
Every little bit
You've got to do it, do it, do it, do it
And when you're through,
You can know who did,
For you did it, you did it, you did it.

an even dozen

In six months, that young couple there, visiting White Sands National Monument on a bright and windy Sunday morning in February of 1996, will be married. They'll have an appointment at the Washington County Courthouse for 10 am on a Thursday, the 16th of August. It will be the day after she moved to Oregon. Following a ten month courtship, half of which was long-distance, he will have flown down to West Texas to accompany her on the long Northwestern drive. They rolled into town late, unpacked her crammed little ford escort in the dark.

The civil marriage ceremony was conducted in a drab office. They had no friends and family present; they asked the couple who married earlier to please remain in the room as witnesses. It was a business transaction, say this, sign here, okay. By half past ten they were married. They drove back to their apartment, stopped in at a diner on the way for an early lunch, sandwiches.

They didn't have a party. They didn't have cake. They didn't think to ask anyone to take their picture together. The only picture from that day, just after she got dressed that morning:

She looks happy, doesn't she? Can you feel her nerves, her hesitance? Her brave smile? Can you tell that she won't sleep the following night, from worry? In one day she moved to a new place, got a new name, catapulted into a new life where she knew not one person (she wanted to count him, but did she really know him, really? It all happened so fast).

If you're the happier ever after sort, then I probably don't want to hear about it. It's not a cushy litter ride, the bumps and rough spots buffered by a layer of tufted pillows, peeled grapes in a bowl by our sides. It's hard work. But we're still in it, and I think that counts for something.

Celebratory plans involve garage cleaning and yard maintenance. We'll leave the dinners out and special excursions to the sort of people who are comfortable paying teenaged babysitters or have local grandparents. (maybe when the children are older, she sighs). The day will go by generally unnoticed, much like the first one.

Which, as it turns out, is okay. I've seen some big happy parties that fell apart soon afterward. We carefully step over the broken glass and confetti, plodding along.

one part melancholy two parts mirth

Feeling a little wayward lately, there's some waiting going on, some worrying, some working with our heads down, biding time. But I'm still here. Wishing I had more to give but glad I have as much as I do. Grateful that, despite the waning summer which wasn't quite what I expected, wanted, summer to be like, there have been sweet moments. There are always sweet moments. And I keep them to myself lately because I can't distill the details just right into the stories anyway and I want to savor every little good bit.

The children walk ahead of me and I lag just far enough behind to take pictures. I keep a canvas bag on my shoulder, stocked with water and keys and wallet, and we head to the park, by way of the store, the library, the book shop. We stop along the way for ripe blackberries, growing wild and invasive, delicious intruders we bake in dishes with oats and almonds and agave nectar.

We eat our dinners on the back patio, with the grapes and the hazelnuts, and the cats chasing through unmown grass. It is very pleasant.

I've been cooking up greens, always the greens. I missed all the kale at the farmer's market a few weeks ago and came home, instead, with chard. And so I have been choosing chard, intentionally, since then. Cooking it up, like usual, with much garlic and salt and just a dash of cider vinegar. More tender, I think, and delicate than the kale; just right for this season.

The other night, the husband asked about a second serving and I admitted, apologetically, that I'd spooned the remaining greens into my own bowl, red chard that, when cooked, infuses its stem's bright red into the garlic, turning the cloves a surprising valentine pink.

And so the boy piped up (my boy so cute, the essence of everything adorable always glinting in his sparkly eyes, his crinkled nose, his smile) and offered to his dad:

"You can have some of my kale"

To which the dad replied, "Thanks!"

And then the boy sang out, "That not kale, that Chard!!!" which was followed by the sort of laughter one could only describe, if one were the adjective using sort or the movie reviewing sort, as uproarious. His laugh is contagious and we shared one hilarious family incident, which, continued, as hilarious incidents involving two year olds often do, with an enthusiastic request to "do it again!"

That might be an Only In Our House kind of story, only in our house is a joking Gotcha! HaHa! moment about a comedic mix-up of two leafy greens.

a most unlucky day

I veer towards hyperbole, it's true. So maybe not the most but certainly lacking in any semblance of Good Fortune. The laundry list includes: falling, in a seemingly choreographed, slo-mo, comedic way, not once but twice (and having the jarred back and re-injured old-broken-foot to prove it); playing nursemaid to the husband's worst migraine ever (which, if you knew his history of migraine's is saying a lot); losing one of the tiny opal stud earrings I've worn every moment for the last 4 years (almost to the day, purchased at a little roadside trading post in Northern Arizona in early August '04, the day we moved to Phoenix. I noticed, after a shower, that the stud was gone but, oddly, the back was still in place, stuck to my earlobe, weird); and then, in the search for the missing earring (which was, sadly, not located), I broke a mirror. I don't go for that superstitious stuff (not really, I tried being superstitious once but, as it turns out, that didn't really work out for me, and not leaving my purse or wallet on the floor didn't make me any richer) but who wants to break a mirror? All those shards!

The following photo is a recent self-portrait and, perhaps, the last time you'll see me wearing those tiny round opals. I am, boiled down and summarized, dispassionate and cynical but, inexplicably, sentimental about the little things. I found another little set of studs in my jewelry box, some yellow stone cut into a skewed square, and that is what I'm wearing now, but it feels more auspicious and foretelling of New Chapters and mile markers than when, for example, I hack off my hair or move to a new house. Those tiny little earrings lived, in my ears, in six different places with me, so you can see why even homes don't feel all that permanent anymore.

I didn't intend to come here with a list of complaints and an inadequate wad of towels sopping up the discontent oozing out from under my door. But that's the way it goes sometimes. I'd like to tell you about other things (blueberries! painting! watermelon! media reviews!) but the first step is usually pulling pictures off the rebel and onto flickr and then posting one or two here and my picture maintenance is falling short, just a lot of falling short lately, generally speaking.

litmus test

My daughter startled out of one of her quiet, thinky spells with this question the other night, "If you had to have a magical creature living in your attic, and what you really wanted was a centaur, but you could only choose a hag or a werewolf, which would you pick?"

She said she can tell a lot about a person based on their answer, but when I asked what she can tell, she hmphed. Who am I to know her secrets?

don't let dewey die

Earlier in the summer, the family and I were at the library, one of our usual evening outings. Owing to a new tiny kitten in our household, I encouraged the girl to check out a few feline specific non-fiction books. And we had a little exchange, something like, Where's the cat section? And I said, Oh! You need a Dewey Decimal Refresher. I said, you can consult the chart on the wall for general categories and I turned around to point, and turned around, and turned around and what? No Dewey Decimal Chart on the wall in the Children's Room at the Public Library?!

So we approached the librarian's desk and I asked if they had a Dewey Decimal wall chart that I didn't see. She gave me a queer look and responded, "oh, I think we used to have one, but we took it down when we put in the new shelves and, oh, it's probably around here somewhere."

Can we see it please?

(surprised expression). Oh, okay. Let me see. (much rifling around, finally finding it slid behind a filing cabinet). and then she looked my girl and said, "future librarian, huh?"

And I didn't say anything because if I'd opened my mouth it would have been, "Future Librarian? Future Librarian?! How about CURRENT LIBRARY USER!" geez.

Now I've since related this scenario to a number of different people and no one else was quite this outraged. I can get a little worked up about this sorta stuff. But the lack of passionate commiseration I've found has led me to worry that DEWEY DECIMAL IS DYING AND NO ONE CARES.

What with your information age and digital catalogs and internet searches, it might not seem like such an important skill set anymore to know the basic call numbers for Ancient Egyptian History (932), because anything you need to find is but a click away. Many public libraries have axed Dewey all together, opting for the academia preferred Library of Congress system. The Library of Congress system is, in my opinion, a better match for our digital world. But nothing beats Dewey if you want to organize and find items quickly without the use of complicated cataloging. We're talking basic categories by subject, time tested and part of our cultural ethos.

I don't think my reaction is purely sentimental. I fondly remember, and sometimes secretly wish my children could experience, the bygone powdery cylindrical Tarn N Tinys candy, instead of the modern, bullet-shaped candy-coated-shell version. That's sentiment.

This is embracing a valuable, traditional skill, an analog methodology useful for bypassing dependence on plugged-in technology. Widespread power outage and energy crisis? No trouble, I can still access the candlemaking section (745.593) by flashlight!

(this 1985 youtube clip is relevant and hilarious and fan-freaking-tastic)

feta makes everything betta

I didn't go as long in life missing out on feta as I did, say, cherries, but it's been off my radar for more years than it's been on, so I feel a little like I'm making up for lost time.

Now that we live 30ish miles from the big city (about an hour drive, owing to lights and traffic, it's not an interstate) our trips to Trader Joe's are infrequent. For over a decade, we've been within a few miles of a TJs and I've grown really reliant on certain products. Our proximity has encouraged me to find replacements, for some stuff, but I do try to get there at least once a month. I can often go longer, depending. Depending on whether we've ran of feta or not.

Because not any feta will do, no. And I can't find another retailer that stocks my favorite:

Pastures of Eden feta, made from Sheep's milk and imported from Israel, is so flipping delicious. Tangy and salty and lacking the same chalky mouth-feel I notice in other fetas. I don't think it tastes sheepy, but then, I don't regularly eat cow dairy, so I have no bovine standard. I do occasionally eat feta when in restaurants and I don't specify the animal milk it was made from (eating out with all of my self-imposed restrictions can be tricky enough, so I have a few gray 'don't ask, don't tell' areas), so it is probably cow and I always, always think it's bland.

As a quick side dish or mid-day snack, we sprinkle the feta on a sprouted wheat english muffin and toast it. I toss it over salads, add it to omelets, pizza. And all of those things are delicious.

But it wasn't until the other day, when I scrabbled together a fast green bean dish (okay, I confess: I found two half used bags of frozen green beans at the back of my freezer, forgotten for who knows how long, and dangerously approaching frostbit stage, and decided I needed to turn them into *something*) did I take my devotion to feta to a whole, new loopy plane.

I sauteed the green beans and a few minced garlic cloves up in a bit of coconut oil. I poured on some Bragg's (liquid aminos, if you're like me, you just say 'bragg's' to mean the product, not the brand name, even though they make other stuff, too, like cider vinegar) and a little water to keep everything from sticking to the cast iron pan, a little more bragg's, a little more water, and then, when they were tender and a little bit caramelized, into a pyrex bowl and I added a lot of crumbled feta. Stir together and eat in unbelievable bliss.

This was really the accompaniment to the chickpea croquettes I made (off the cuff, sorta like falafels with ingredients at hand, but using fresh basil and almond meal instead of flour, for a really delicate texture) but I tell you: the green beans stole the show.

It was the sort of flavor combination I couldn't stop thinking about and had to replicate as soon as possible. Yesterday I took a bunch of fresh green beans from my local farmer's market and did the same thing and served it up to a visiting friend. We split the whole bowl and I think she found it just as delicious as I did.

if i hurry, i'll have an hour

(

I grabbed my keys and wallet and left the house in a rush last night, just before 8. The girl asked me where I was going and I said, "to a meeting of the secret society of crazy mothers". And it's trite, but true: thrift shopping is therapeutic for me. I know I've written all about it, but not recently, so I consider the subject due for a revisit. My daughter, of course, gave me that cockeyed screwy face that reads: I know what you're talking about, but do you know what a dork you are? And I do, I do know. But I'm so much more comfortable being a big dorky goofball (saying ridiculous things that can make my children belly laugh or incite the dramatic marriage of eye-rolling and the five syllable "mom", depending) than the short-on patience and humor alternative. The more fun I'm having, the more fun we all have (which is the reverse variant, I suppose, of the old "if mama ain't happy" line). But it takes some key components to cultivate my (usual, as pertains to my mothering) good spirits: adequate sleep, some alone time, and booze. Okay, not really the booze. Well, sometimes. No no. I mean, beer's not booze, right? Ha! See. Anyway, you know it's a secret society because the only attendee is me and and all the group talk happens in my head, in and among thumbing over all the stuff somebody else doesn't want anymore but which I, perhaps, might.

That's my haul from last night's goodwill trip. I went looking for fabric suitable for making a small bathroom curtain. As our first anniversary of closing on this property looms, maybe it's time to upgrade from the precariously hung-up beach towel. You think?

I didn't find the right fabric, but I did find a school desk for five dollars (we already have one school desk, but it's smaller, and, besides, who could say no to a school desk for a mere five spot? I'd like to paint it up art piece style and put in in the yard but the girl wants to use it. I guess we'll see. . .) and (yet another) plate to stash in my cupboard until I (finally) figure out what color to paint my living room and get around to hanging all the plates I've been collecting for a few years. Throw in a runner in my fave color combo (love that brown + orange), a calico apron with ric rac trim, and some clothes and a book, and I call that an hour (and about twenty bucks) well spent.

floats my boat

I've spent the last several weeks counting down the days (don't picture sharpie hatch marks filling my calendar, think peripheral glad awareness) of the season two debut of Mad Men. I thought it was coming on tonight, Tuesday the 22nd. But it won't air until this coming Sunday. I'm not even much of a television watcher, generally speaking, and this is the first cable program I've followed (minus, say, any we've rented in dvd form). Last Spring (late April '07) was the start of so much good and terrible. Moving back to Oregon: good! Staying in tiny, temporary apartment while househunting: Terrible! It was like camping in a crowded suburban apartment complex , with just a smidge of our belongings, both pets, and a flea infestation (oh, and there was a pregnacy loss and resulting complications, bad news!). Getting cable was our tiny, insufficient consolation prize. And Mad Men as a summer premier was such a decadent escape for me. I sunk into the storyline, the set design, the social implications of the era, all of it.

Last year I thought I was the only person watching this show and this year, it's everywhere! Only, not on my television tonight. Circumstance has exhausted the best of my patience and I'm in no mood to wait. So. I'll share the song that's stuck in my head these recent days. The last time I had a song stuck in my head it was Bon Iver's Lump Sum and I couldn't stop hearing it, humming it, feeling it for the bulk of our long, rainy Spring. Wait, actually, I probably still have that whole album stuck in my head, in a background music sort of way, though it's less simpatico with sunshine and freckles, for me, than with rain clouds and hot baths before bed.

No, my summertime song I can't stop wanting to sing is White Winter Hymnal from Fleet Foxes (who, I said elsewhere, I enjoy despite the unfortunate association I can't shake between the word 'fleet' and enemas and rental cars), which is fresh and jangly like a good summer song should be, even if it's about Winter (though it has summertime in the chorus). It's much more harmonic and campfire-song-y than what I think would be a typical 'summer song'. It's not so much drive at sunset, windows down, real fast, it's really more pedal your cruiser around the neighborhood in a late evening breeze. (Do you see everything in analogies, too?)

cape perpetua redux

This past weekend we rectified three accidental oversights, of the life-getting-in-the-way of Life variety: we went camping (it's been four whole years since our last tent sleep in the great outdoors), we introduced our boy to the ocean (at age 2! we have been amiss. our home is but an hour away) and the husband took one (but just one) vacation day off of work (after a year of more work than is good for anybody).

We've done more camping on the Oregon Coast than anywhere else in this great green state, so heading westward was, by default, the easy decision. The girl wanted Forest the husband desired Sea and the Oregon coast has the singularly beguiling combination of offering both. Fairy forests and ferns and old growth Firs and mossy carpets and a short trudge beyond: rock edges and sea sprays and driftwood.

Let it be known that I do not much care for the beach. So raw and salty and severe. I feel the weight of every lonely moment I've ever had chaffing my skin. And maybe, maybe I wouldn't feel this way on another beach. Maybe I should make clear that most of my coastal experiences have been in Oregon, craggy and windswept like some setting from an epic piece of British literature: the howling and roaring competing with heartbreak for loudest sorrow.

But I don't dislike it entirely. And I was absolutely game for our destination. But our destination, a non-reservable state campsite, just south of the central coast: solidly full. Oh dear! We turned back around, north on the 101, stopping in at every ground, hoping.

The national park site at Cape Perpetua had at least one tent site free. Hurrah! We made small talk with the camp manager. Most camp hosts are the monstrous motor home sort, the yappy dog and whirligig sort, the Good Sam sticker on the back sort. You know. But this woman is there with her husband and children (8!) in a converted old bus turned living quarters, summering in Oregon from New Mexico (New Mexico!). The husband double checked, so just that one last site remaining? And she said, Well, we do have this one other possibility. An old ampitheater area, you can't drive all the way in, it's really private, there's a fire ring, but no grate and no table, would you be interested? Would we? Yes!

It was such a relief. In one moment we went from feeling worried that we might not find a spot at all to ending up with a place so perfect we could not have expected better. Relief and gratitude.

And it was a lovely long weekend. Restorative and peaceful and invigorating and tiresome (that good tiresome that builds ones muscles and evens out the bumps beneath the camping pad).

We did all the usual: hiking and campfires and smushy attempts at sand castles. There were tired boy meltdowns (what happens the day after little legs hike for many miles) and stories read (at bedtime, something they both love and which characters and voices are as comfortable in my mouth as my own teeth: Winnie the Pooh. bah! to Disney for not being as respectful to this beloved Milne bear as he deserves) and a big girl so busy with the kind of creativity she's so so good at (like the long dry vine she fashioned into a hoop, secured with duct tape, and then made up 'hoop tricks' for hours).

I had plenty of quiet pondering time. Rocking in the camp chair, back and forth, at fireside thinking things like how much more fitting it would be, in the falling night chill, to share furtive sips of some warm hooch, or something with particular warming properties, from out of a flask from beneath the folds of a Pendleton blanket. But since I have neither flasks nor Pendleton blankets, it's common fleece and cold beer and no furtive passing anyway, just the kind of worn down, low-grade sparring that comes from being married nearly a dozen years and camping with two children.

I did a little reading of my own. Henry James' Daisy Miller, which I have not, I don't know how, ever read. I adore James and his descriptions and flouncy characters, a striking and fitting contrast to our voluntarily primitive surroundings.

Of course, it had been so long since our last camping trip that the routine felt stiff and new. I forgot a good lot of items that would have made the experience just that much more enjoyable. Like socks. It was entirely too cold at night for my feet to be bare and I'm so glad my guy thought better than I did and I was able to bum a pair off of him on night two. The temperature dropped down low enough that my sleeping bag failed to keep me warm. Of course, this might be due, in part, to my still night nursing boy and half-uncovered torso, my avoidance of tight spaces which keeps me from zipping up the whole way. It's a shame space is always such a premium, because I'd much prefer camping with a pile of quilts and blankets than with a thin bag crammed into a stuff sack. There is something about the nylon tent and the slick camping pad and the sleeping bag on top that makes for a slippy slidey sleeping arrangement, which, I confess does not exactly suit me. I might come up with a new set-up for next time (next time!).

But on the whole it was just right, just what we needed. I don't know if you're adept enough at reading between the lines (or if I've left enough width in the spaces for reading), but I don't use 'needed' lightly. And now we need to do it again. Soon!

a monday manifesto

I believe molasses + cold milk over cereal (plain Joe's O's) is better than it sounds. Oh yes, and the milk is goat milk, fresh from the farm and unpasteurized. I admit to being skeptical, once, about drinking raw milk. And I wouldn't drink just any raw milk. And I suggest you be as discerning. But if you're drinking factory farmed milk, if it comes from sick animals leading stifled lives in unsanitary conditions, then I guess the more it's pasteurized the less blood and pus you'll have to drink and so that's probably preferable. But maybe you might want to wonder why there's so much blood and pus in your milk in the first place. Pasteurization kills bacteria, but why so much bacteria? And what else is it killing in the meantime? All the best of any reason you might be drinking milk in the first place. (that's what).

I believe in taking tastes of raw egg containing batter. Remember when we were kids and everybody licked the beaters? And then we worried about salmonella: licks of batter, tiny nibbles of dough, became fraught with risk, illicit. Now salmonella, e. coli seem as likely to infiltrate your chain restaurant salad bar as anywhere else. Where are your eggs coming from? We bought the best eggs I thought I could get in stores, cage-free, organic, the works, until I sourced a local product. And now we eat eggs laid from happy chickens, treated humanely and fed good stuff. I've baked for so many years without eggs, any animal products at all, that a lot of my baked goods are still egg-free, from habit. We tend to eat eggs more for their own eggy goodness. But I might use them in muffins or brownies and I do make an egg batter every week for French Toast Friday and if I inadvertently lick off a finger or what have you, I don't think twice about it. I'm not worried about getting sick. I do try to wipe the handles off of grocery carts, though, and I always open public bathroom doors with the hem of my shirt.

early inheritance

do you have a tried and true solution for removing black machine grease from clothing?

i have this skirt. this really lovely, thin cotton skirt in the most pleasing shades of white and gray and green and yellow, stripes, with perfect side patch pockets. i thrifted this skirt many years ago but i've never worn it. the waist is tiny. i have hung the skirt in so many closets thinking that maybe my waist might be tiny someday and it would fit. i'm at the point where i'm not hoping tiny anymore, just crossing fingers for my old regular small-ish again. so i decided the other day i'd just cut the skirt up, turn it into an apron. i could add ties and wear it over pants.

but then i thought, hey, maybe it would fit my girl. she tried it on. yes. we have similar taste in style: she loved it. she wore it two days in a row. on the second day, she did something, i'm not sure, and now the circumference of the hem is covered in black grease.

i haven't touched it because i'm so upset about it. it was just a cheap secondhand skirt. i think it came from 'the bins' and would have been much less than a dollar. but i've had it all this time, see, and i've grown attached. to have it ruined so quickly is more than i can bear!

share the road

A few days after my guy spotted one of these limited plates -which benefit both Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Cycle Oregon- our plates came up for renewal. Truly we would have kicked in more than the ten bucks it cost to switch, because bicycle awareness is that important to us. But with such a reasonable fee, it was a simple decision. I'm surprised I'm not seeing more of these around. Maybe it's still early yet.

I don't commute by bicycle (we non employed types tend to work close to home) but my husband often does. And when he's hugging the shoulder of a rural highway, I sure hope all those logging trucks and tractor trailers and farmers in a hurry are mindful of his presence and share the road.

We ride, as a family, frequently for pleasure and purpose (quick trips to nearby stores or parks). The husband (with the boy on his handlebar mounted seat) takes the lead, the girl rides safe in the middle, and I am the blue schwinn caboose. We ride in bike lanes and avoid very busy roads, as much as possible, but it's likely that we'll still get in front of some a-hole who thinks it's okay to Honk from behind or pass us in an unsafe manner, slamming the gas pedal and screeching ahead. And I guess I don't much expect those people to change. I am sure there are folks who believe firmly that roads are for cars and bikes should stay off, but I'd like to hope that they will become the rare, astonishing exception. Because biking isn't going anywhere and is more commonplace than ever.

i'll keep mentioning the sink until we replace something else

While the above gratuitous sink shot features cherries, it just as well could have been a picture of more strawberries. Will you believe that the very day after I bemoaned the end of strawberry season, my husband called me up with a request to glean from some top secret fields he knows?! We all went out one evening this week, after dinner, and brought home four gallons of the smallest, tastiest, reddest, ripest strawberries ever. They were a less hardy variety and, I confess, not a good match for my tendency to procrastinate the process of produce. (please excuse that riff of accidental lip smacking alliteration there). They didn't all make it through the washing, de-stemming, freezing routine, but our stash has grown considerably and I feel entirely prepared now to say goodbye to local strawberries for another year. How about that?

But now let me tell you about cherries. Cherries! I am thirty-two years old and I just discovered cherries. Which might strike you as incredibly sad or strange, but, if you happened to have been around during the winter 06 discovery of Pears (!) then perhaps you are not surprised.

This is what I'm doing and it's not an edict for the rest of you, it's just my personal philosophy: I'm going to assume that the more good food we have around the house, the more good food my kids will eat. And this is pretty much working out for us; which means, my kids have never made the acquaintance of Chef Boyardee but they're able to identify a slew of different mushrooms and they can, now, distinguish between a Ranier and a Bing. At the very least, they won't reach their third decade mistakingly dismissing all cherries based on a few early tastes of maraschinos.

It makes me wonder what else I might be missing out on. . .

is that just me?

The bad news is: I think I missed strawberry season. And by missed, what I really mean is What? Gone already? Because we've been picking up pints of local berries every couple of days and we picked all those buckets full a few weeks ago to stock our freezer, so it isn't like we missed them at all. But it wasn't enough. We aren't ready to wait a Whole! Year! for more. They taste better, after all that waiting, but my! They sure were so sweet right now. My favorite summer treat, which tastes so fresh and perfect: red, ripe strawberries cut into halves or quarters, a generous dollop of plain yogurt, and then a whole lot of ground almonds on top. I regret not eating that more often. It should be an every single night indulgence, while it lasts.

BUT!

The good news is: blueberries are here! and I have a new (secondhand) sink to wash them in.

(And the best news of all! A long and picture-heavy post ahead!)

So even though the kitchen sink was low on our list of potential home improvement projects, we couldn't help snagging a replacement recently at a nearby church rummage sale for a whopping five bucks. The faucet came from the secondhand building materials store in town (proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity) and the fittings and pipes and such came because sometimes fifty plus year old pipes are so corroded and rusty they just can't be salvaged and, thankfully, my not-a-plumber but earnest-and-capable-handyman husband was patient enough to make a lot of trips back and forth today to Lowe's.

It's amazing what a difference the new sink makes. I try to be in the moment, grateful, chopping wood and carrying water despite the irritating little details that clutter my path. I try. But when one of those irritating details is suddenly erased, it's amazing what a difference it makes. I have a clean sink now! Shiny! Not rusty and stained brown, impervious, even, to the caustic kiss of bleach. It's deep enough and bigger on one side to hold so many dirty dishes! No more dirty dishes splayed halfway down the counter for lack of appropriate soaking space! It's wide enough to hold a casserole dish! The pizza pan can fit entirely! Really you must sense how excited I am! The sprayer nozzle works! I can pull it out and spray crumbs and such away! I don't have to splash water to the corners with my cupped hand anymore!

Having the right tool for the job makes all the difference. I have wasted a lot of time in the last nine months hand washing dishes all the wrong way. The chore went so much more quickly tonight. And it feels so much better in there now.

But I don't want you to think all I do is moon over enamel (not cast iron enamel, like the old one, no, but apparently enamel over some kind of composite, which hopefully means fewer chipped dishes in my future) and moan about what little project might next revolutionize my life.

While the porridge cooked on the stove this morning, and the berries drained in the colander, I took pictures of the children.

The boy, who did not want to wait for breakfast but did want to wait to have his diaper changed, and he wallowed around on the chair, on both counts:

And the girl took up her customary position, at the table with pen(cil) and paper, an idea in her head, a story growing from her fingers, a hummy song on her lips. . .

. . .and cats on her lap (okay, just one cat, but she is a cat charmer, believe it, and it is a wonder that our sour old puss is tolerating the spry kitten now enough to be this close):

There was a busy day of watering yards and putting laundry away and reading and eating sugar snap peas sun-warmed and perfect right off the vine and reorganizing kitchen drawers and then, later, while the pizza dough was rising, a rousing family bicycle ride. We parked the bikes and trudged down a rough path to a precarious dock to the river. It was beautiful and we think we would like a canoe. (Although the one of us prone to motion sickness especially and not at all in favor of boats, in general, wonders if this is really a wise whole family endeavor or not).

There was a steep hill on the return ride. I tend to like the hill + bicycle combination quite a lot on the downward journey. wheeee! As close as many of us may ever get to the sensation of flying, I imagine. I am less fond, you may guess, of uphill. I expected to have to walk the hill, pushing my heavy bike (it's a new-ish but clunky cruiser meant for riding with an upright carriage and nod-and-smile attitude toward the people I pass, and it is not, in any way, streamlined and designed for speed, which is fine because I like to smile and notice things and do not, at all, will not, ever, bicycle leaning forward and hunched down low to my handlebars). But guess what? I didn't have to stop and walk it and I made it up at an even, respectable pace AND so did the girl, who also was intimidated by the hill.

I punched down the dough and assembled the pizza as soon as we returned home. It was already closing in on eight, but it's so hard to adhere to dinner-time dinners in the summer in Oregon when it stays bright until past nine o'clock.

And then we ate, sunday night pizza, I've perfected the pizza sauce, after all these years of pizza making, and maybe getting a little bored with the weekly gig, changing up the sauce (of all things, the sauce!) is making such a difference. I get compliments now and they gobble it up and want more and there's not enough left for lunch tomorrow.

I remembered we were out of crushed red chili peppers. Did you know that I can't eat pizza without (a lot) of crushed red peppers? It must be genetic because my sister is the same way. We both have a predilection and a tolerance for Hot and Spicy that maybe edges a little on the weird and neurotic. Anyhow, we were out and the walk-to store was closed and did I really want to get in the car and drive somewhere for crushed peppers or skip the pizza or what? Or how about I just break into my secret stash. What? You don't keep a little emergency packet of crushed red peppers hidden in your wallet?

and i feel fine

I find myself tangled in cords in the middle of the night most nights, the price of falling asleep listening to my ipod. Recently, I got a little clamp lamp for the side of my bed, so I've resumed reading before bed sometimes. But I dislike waking up hours later with the light still on, my glasses crooked and shoved into the side of my head, the book fallen over, pages bent. So I listen.

The other night I fell asleep to the most recent To The Best Of Our Knowledge podcast, about It's The End Of The World As We Know It. And while I find all of the TTBOOK episodes compelling and interesting -so much so that I'm always thinking, oh! I should write in my little blog about that. But I never do- this one stuck especially in my head. I probably shouldn't have fallen asleep to the episode about peak oil and apocalypse, because I had a sleepless night plagued with nightmares. Overactive imagination or warning! warning! warning! ? It's hard to know. It's hard to know what is prudent preparation and what might not matter anyway. I don't think any of us wish to be caught the shivering grasshopper. But if the ants don't last much longer. . . ?

In the grand scheme of a world without oil, the hierarchy of importance shifts. Suddenly we're embracing tiny moments and whittling down our fluffy existence to the stuff that really counts. Suddenly things that raise my blood pressure now and have me wondering if it's beer o'clock yet -like my blasted nasty kitchen floor- seem so obscenely trivial.

I'm not anxious to start living a post-apocalyptic life early, but I am trying to not let the trivial stuff get the better of me. Because it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if my floors are spotty, if my sink is pitted and ever rusty, if my windows open the wrong direction (it pains me a little, ridiculously so, that I have side-to-side opening windows and not up-and-down opening windows). None of these irritants will survive in the face of global tragedy, so I might as well start letting them fade away now.

I've thrown the mop out all together. Every couple of days or so, I dump some water (with white vinegar and essential oil drops) on to the floor, throw an old dirty towel over the puddle, and scooch around. It's easier than mopping and the weight of me pressing into the rough surface of the floor pulls ground-in dirt out of all the little crevices. It is quick and cheap. To think a few weeks ago I almost bought an expensive steam cleaner, I was so frustrated! With all the dollars I saved on that, I can add more food storage to my End of the World stock. (ha ha, kidding. but not really).