small red house

craft = power

2009-04-22T13:21:00.009-04:00

Yesterday, Jacob and I were eating lunch and listening to one of my favorite newer NPR shows, which featured an Earth Week segment on greener parties and celebrations for kids. You can listen to the segment and read the comment thread that inspired this post here.

Just a note on the idea of being "crafty": I have never really thought of myself as crafty in the hipster sense, or even the Girl Scout arts-and-crafts sense. Maybe it's because I've never been much of a visual artist. I don't do any knitting to speak of (yet) and I don't own a hot glue gun (yet). I do have a haphazardly-thrown-together craft box, containing seemingly useless bits of metal and plastic and fabric and cardboard. For the most part, I'm interested in crafts, as long as either a) I can make something useful instead of buying it or b) I can make something out of material that otherwise would have been thrown away, or both.

During the past year or so, I've tried to embrace crafting from this perspective; I wanted to give Khymi a bathrobe for Chanukah, but I was sorely disappointed by the fact that cotton terry seems available only for babies and hotel guests. So I used a newly-acquired sewing machine to make her one out of old towels.

Or there was the maddening situation with the cats. They happily scratch the couch or the rug, but not the carpeted scratching post, which I bought at PetSmart a couple years ago and which remains largely untouched. One evening, after another discouraging walk through the cat aisle looking at overpriced cardboard scratchers, I took a utility knife to a few of the cardboard boxes that cover our basement floor, and inspired by this post over at The Good Human, Jacob and I made a small scratching pad in a couple of hours. Lila took to it instantly (an unprecedented behavior). Free!

So I suppose I've been driven to craftiness out of necessity. But I don't think crafting should be overlooked as a frivolous or decorative pasttime. Check out the etymology of the word:

Old English cræft "power, strength, might," from Proto-Germanic *krab-/*kraf-. Sense shifted to "skill, art" (via a notion of "mental power"), which led to the n. meaning of "trade."

Indeed, in modern German, Kraft still means "power". Many crafts--woodworking, ceramics, sewing, fiber arts, cooking, gardening--have become nothing but quaint upper-middle-class hobbies during this time when goods are cheaply and easily made and shipped far and wide.

But on this Earth Day, I ask you to hold on to your crafts, my friends. Cultivate and maintain them as well as you can. Learn to create and repair objects of lasting function; with your head and hands, give them real use, and with your heart, give them beauty. Don't just think of craft as a way to pass the time or a neat thing to do, although it may well be; don't even just think of it as a way to save money, although it may well have to be; think of it as power. The power to produce rather than consume, to process rather than discard, to sustain rather than deplete. The power to put as much art into your craft as you desire--to make a four-tone Fair Isle sweater, or simply to darn a pair of black socks to save them from the rag pile.

The Western world is beginning to take an interest (see my mom's course offerings for next year if you want proof)--let's hope it lasts. On Earth Day, we hear a lot about saving the Earth. Let's make one thing very clear: no matter what happens, the Earth will be fine. What we're really worried about is saving ourselves, our world as we know it. Which aspects of humanity should we be saving? Which ones are worth letting go?

resurrection

2009-04-14T23:19:00.004-04:00

...Is this thing on?

Maybe someone will see this, in the off-chance that small red house has been hibernating away on your blogroll, in your bookmarks, on your Google Reader, even. Well, hello, there.

These have been a real crackerjack eight months, haven't they? Last I checked, the President was making up words like "arbo-tree-ist", and here we are just a few months later and they've got an organic vegetable garden at the White House. Hot damn!

Then there's this messy business of what they're calling a global economic crisis, but some of us didn't have much money to begin with, and we already live off of lentils and flush our toilets with buckets of water from the shower, so we're not hurting any more than before. Yet.

What else is new? The big girl is 8 now. She reads whole books cover-to-cover and has the attention span to watch A Hard Day's Night in its entirety on YouTube with us. Good times.

And in the fall, we got a new cat. Actually, we were sort of given a new cat. My friend Rachel found her in Baltimore in front of the Rite-Aid at 32nd and Greenmount. She was a little...uncivilized at first, but has settled in really nicely:

One internet habit I've been decent at keeping up all this time is garden tracking on Folia. If you garden/farm, it's worth checking out. You can see all the details on my Folia page, but this year we're growing more tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and spinach, plus some new stuff like daikon radishes and little compact softball-sized muskmelons. We've also planted more flowers in hopes of getting more pollinators to hang around (and to improve nectar flow for the bees that we may, someday in our dreams, keep in our backyard).

So I guess we're back. At least I am, for now. I'll write in more detail about other happenings in the next few posts. Hope life has been treating all of you well.

aquarius

2009-02-14T14:33:00.002-05:00

never could make much sense of this one.
indifferent, passive and strangely luminous
fires up the glow of helios himself
lulls comfort and then once again
when i forget to drink enough water
it would be a thoughtful gesture to
tip the clay pitcher
but out streams a flurry of milkweed seeds
bobbing up and away in the dry air.

that careless blow of cold
left me standing with sweaters on my floor
warm-faced, lightheaded
barefoot,
northeast wind through every thread.

hiatus

2008-08-22T17:23:00.002-04:00

I wrote most of that last post over a month ago. Now our blog and our ("official") marriage are coming up on the one-year mark. And I think it's time for me to take a break.

I've always been an enthusiastic member of the internet generation--learned basic HTML at 13, started blogging at 18. I'm happy for the ways in which online communication has made it a lot easier to keep in touch with friends and family, near and far. If it weren't for the internet, I don't think Jacob and I would have met, although it may have been remotely possible.

But recently, my outlook has taken a turn. I'm feeling deeply disillusioned and unsettled by a feeling of online anomie. It isn't the result of a particular occurrence, but rather an accumulation of smaller experiences. And it's offline as well as online. For example: I often see car magnets proclaiming the message Choose Civility, which references a small movement in Howard County spurred by this book. Take a moment, if you have the time, to contemplate the need in our society for an entire book essentially explaining how to be nice to other people.

I am too often shocked and perplexed by the cruelty and abuse people are capable of inflicting upon each other. These days it's just been wearing on me too much. Governments around the world are starting wars, killing innocent people over money, resources and power. On the morning we left for the beach, a troubled and unstable gunman walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and opened fire, killing two people, injuring six, and leaving the rest of the congregation, the denomination and other well-meaning people everywhere asking, "Why?" How could this happen? How could anyone do such a thing?

I've found myself more affected by even the smallest displays of insensitivity--those not at all on the scale of the acts I just mentioned. The driver who leans on her horn the second the light turns green, not noticing that the car in front of her is waiting for a pedestrian to finish crossing. The man at a restaurant who doesn't bother to make eye contact with the waitress, speak to her in full sentences, or say "thank you." The girls on the playground who deliberately leave another girl out of their game for no reason, whispering, "just ignore her." People all over the internet who think that behind the shield of their computer screens, they can say whatever hurtful things they want, bend reality to their advantage, or make themselves out to be superior.

There's hope yet for the girls on the playground. The rest of us, I'm not sure about. I used to think that when you asked someone, "How are you?" they'd say something like, "Fine, thanks; how are you?" Now I'm learning not to expect that as much.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in Strength to Love that to contribute positively to the world, one must have both a tough mind and a tender heart, and that softmindedness and hardheartedness are equally detrimental to one's efforts in doing so. He wrote,

The hardhearted person never truly loves. He engages in a crass utilitarianism which values other people mainly according to their usefulness to him. He never experiences the beauty of friendship, because he is too cold to feel affection for another and is too self-centered to share another's joy and sorrow. He is an isolated island. No outpouring of love links him with the mainland of humanity.

I see hardheartedness everywhere I turn, and it drives me crazy, as I'm sure it must drive many of you crazy, too. I used to think that my persistent good will and tenderheartedness would be enough to make a dent while also giving me some sense of hope. But it hasn't, really, and I think it's not just all the hardheartedness that's giving me trouble. It's the combination of that and my own softmindedness. I'm smart enough to act toughminded some of the time, but toughmindedness ultimately isn't about intelligence. It's about focus, discretion, discipline and mental fortitude. With my mind weakened as it has been by the effects of MDD and ADHD, attaining those qualities has been a steep uphill struggle. And it's been hard to extend myself to love, and to accept love, without also being overly affected by my encouters with carelessness, selfishness, apathy and inhumanity.

So I think it's time for me to turn my energy elsewhere and continue working to build a tougher mind, more of a balance. I won't be writing here for the time being, and I won't be reading or commenting as much, either. As you may have noticed, Jacob hasn't been too psyched about blogging after typing on a computer all day, so it'll probably be pretty quiet around here.

I've let my social networking accounts go fallow as well. I might stick around on Freedom Gardens, since there's not much involved. Otherwise, I'll be on email or in the real world. I'd love to hear from you in any of those places.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

the invisible stepfamily

2008-08-22T11:51:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the absence, everyone. I'm still sort of decompressing from several crazy-but-wonderful weeks of summer parenting time. It's pretty much baptism by fire for me, compared to the typical parenting learning curve, and considering I'm still somewhat new to this. It feels a little jarring to be unceremoniously thrown into "mom" mode, including being called "your mom" by many well-meaning (but presumptuous) strangers, while not actually being Khymi's mother--not wanting to be, not pretending to be; just assuming similar responsibilities. I guess some would say a stepmother is a kind of mother, but I'm quite aware of the fact that I am not Khymi's mother. That title has always belonged to someone else, and it always will.

Every now and then I read another stepparent's account of their integrating a partner and the partner's child(ren) into his or her life, and although I hear a lot of familiar experiences, I've never much liked the "instant family" image that is often described. Maybe many people think of blended families as something like The Brady Bunch. The thing about the Bradys is that Mike was a widower, and no one really knew what Carol's story was, but each set of children was supposed to have been raised exclusively by one parent for some time, before Mike and Carol met and they were just one big happy family--emphasis there on one.

The Brady Bunch and its cousins like Yours, Mine and Ours (also about the blending of two widowed families) don't really portray the typical blended family, because they conveniently eliminate any need to discuss divorce/separation and shared custody by making the parents' ex-partners either deceased or completely out of the picture. For most of us, that's just not the case. In my opinion, to call one's new nuclear family an instant family isn't entirely fair to the child(ren) involved, or to the other adults. To me, "instant" it makes it sound effortless for a child to automatically become "ours" and have that be the end of it, when in most cases, the child is also someone else's, and that's a significant part of who that child is. This is true even when one of the parents is deceased or absent, and it's certainly true if the child's other parent is present and involved in his or her life.

The fact that the kids have another parent/family somewhere else isn't a bad thing, nor should it reflect negatively on them. Although the two-family situation can sometimes present challenges that non-blended families do not have to face, for the most part, it's just the way it is. I really don't think it would have been that complicated or inconvenient for Marcia, Jan and Cindy to take an episode off because they were with their father that day. Sitcom writers have made far more unlikely storylines happen when they really wanted to.

If I were to make a movie or sitcom about our family... well, it wouldn't be interesting enough. (That's why we all have blogs, right?) But hypothetically, I couldn't even consider making it seem like it's just about the three of us and our life here, no matter how simple it might be to edit here and there to make it look that way. So much of who Khymi is comes from her mother and maternal family, her life and experiences at her other home, and also from her past, years before either her stepfather or I even knew she existed. None of those parts of her life involve me or are under my control. That doesn't mean, though, that I can just operate as if those parts don't exist or matter. If I did, I would essentially be rejecting my stepdaughter's integral, whole being. And so, while we spend most of our time together focusing on maintaining a good family life in the everyday and in this place, Jacob and I know that we are just one side of her uniquely multifaceted life. We are one family, but we are not her one and only.

It's a little tiresome, but when one of those well-meaning counselors or teachers says to Khymi, "Let's show your mom what you've learned," I smile and say kindly, "I'm her stepmom, but I'd love to see what she's learned. And maybe we can take a picture to show her mom, too."

bamboo

2008-08-01T11:35:00.003-04:00

For once, I'm not talking about the stuff at our house.

My mom, textiles PhD and sustainable consumption blogger Nice White Lady, is doing a series this week on clothing/textiles made from bamboo. We personally are all too aware of how "highly renewable" bamboo is, but does that alone make it a more eco-friendly source of material for fabrics? Find out here.

As for us, we're finishing up a week at the beach, so we'll catch up after we get back.

waste-free lunches part 4: "hidden" waste reduction

2008-07-25T09:40:00.005-04:00

So maybe everything I've written is no news to you. You've been using food savers and cloth lunch bags and water bottles and cold packs for years, and you've got a pretty healthy diet. What else is new? Maybe it's time for us to examine the processes behind our seemingly simple choices, and remember that not all carrot sticks or granola bars are created equally.

When I wrote that list above, you may have thought to yourself, "Wait a minute. Granola bars?" A product that comes individually-wrapped in a cardboard box of six doesn't seem to belong on a list of waste-free lunch ingredients.

Granola bars are another manufactured and packaged food product that used to be on my regular shopping list, especially if I knew I had a car trip with Khymi coming up. Apart from scanning the ingredients for anything questionable, I didn't really think twice about tossing the box in the cart or grabbing a couple of granola bars on the way out the door. That was until I discovered how easy they are to make at home, with whatever ingredients you like best.

Just poke around online and you'll find lots of recipes for different kinds of granola bars.

A recipe that's working for us right now (adapted from Vegetarian Times):

Chewy Granola Bars! (not vegan.)

Ingredients:
2½ cups rolled oats
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour, or lower protein flour like pastry or rice flour [what's up, Allie?!]
¼ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2/3 cup chopped dried apricots
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup almonds (you can chop them up; I like to leave them whole)
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup almond butter
¼ vegetable oil
2 egg whites
Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C
Grease a rectangular baking dish (glass works well)
Combine first four ingredients (dry powdery things) in a bowl. Add the next three (dried fruit/nuts) and stir to coat so the fruit doesn't stick together as much.
Beat last 4 (wet) ingredients together until smooth. Stir in dry ingredient mixture until well-combined (this works really well in a stand mixer, but a wooden spoon would also probably do the trick).
Spread mixture in baking dish and moosh it around with a spatula to compress it and make the top and edges nice and even. Sprinkle a little salt on top if you like. Bake for about 30 minutes or until firm. Cool completely before slicing into bars.

Other recipes are probably really similar. What's great is the versatility--cut into bars of whatever shape and size you prefer. Store them in an airtight container, and pack in lunches, or for road trips or kids' sporting events (for daily lunches, I'd pack one in a very small rectangular food saver). Many of the ingredients are interchangeable, so if you hate raisins or are allergic to peanuts, you can just leave them out. Use a different sweetener (brown sugar, brown rice syrup, honey), or no sweetener. The recipe above might not be vegan, but there are a bunch that are. Crunchy eating habits notwithstanding, you could throw in some M&Ms (or bacon bits, or whatever), if the mood takes you. Experiment!

We take so many of these industrial foods for granted, when it's usually not so hard to find or make food that's local, seasonal, and/or uses less packaging. Here's our list from the "food" post again, this time emphasizing some of the hidden choices we found we could make:

-Pita pockets with hummus and lettuce, with sliced tomatoes in a separate container to be added on top before eating (prevents sogginess) [Homemade hummus using dry chickpeas and olive oil purchased in bulk with reusable containers, lettuce from our garden, tomatoes from the farmers' market]
-Tortilla roll-ups with separate containers of egg salad and fixins [Homemade tortillas using bulk flour, local eggs from the farmers' market, homemade plain yogurt instead of mayonnaise]
-Regular sandwiches (peanut butter & jam, hummus & pesto spread with lettuce and the separate-tomato container) [Homemade bread stored in a reused bag, bulk grind-your-own peanut butter in a reusable container, homemade jam using local strawberries, homemade pesto using homegrown basil]
-Cold leftovers from dinner (cold sesame noodles, pasta with veggies, rice and beans) [Bulk pasta, rice, dry beans, and soy sauce; veggies from CSA share and farmers' market]
-Carrot sticks or cucumber slices with hummus or dip --[Carrots purchased in 5-lb bag, cucumbers from farmers' market, dip made from homemade yogurt and homegrown fresh herbs]
-Fresh fruit [Seasonal fruit (peaches, apricots, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries) from the farmers' market]
-Dried fruit or trail mix [Purchased in bulk]
-Granola bars [Homemade granola bars using bulk rolled oats, flour, maple syrup, almonds, dried apricots and cranberries, local egg whites, and bulk grind-your-own almond butter]

What a difference, huh? And these are just the choices we could make, or were willing to. Yours would probably look a little different.

We still have replacements we're working on--for example, one of our big lingering plastic-packaged vices is tortilla chips. We eat those like it's our job. So we'd like to start making corn tortillas for fresh tortilla chips instead. Same thing with crackers. And one of Khymi's favorite quick lunches is pan-fried dumplings--I even put them in her lunch as a treat on the first and last days of camp--but we buy the packaged frozen ones; we don't make them from scratch. How hard could it be?

Well, I think that's it. Any other lunch box tips out there? How easy has it been for you to pack fresher, healthier lunches for yourself or your family? Have you found that sacrificing "convenience" hasn't really meant that much of a sacrifice? What about in the winter when less fresh produce is available locally?

Other reading about healthy or waste-free kids' lunches:

Jacob's Aunt Nora is a school health consultant and writes a blog called Create Healthy Schools, where she discusses healthy school lunches among the many other components of a healthy school.
WasteFreeLunches.org is a site sponsored by the makers of Laptop Lunches, offering lots of advice on reducing waste in portable meals.
The Vegan Lunchbox by Jennifer McCann is a source of tons of healthy, impeccably-presented, low-waste, kid-friendly lunches from a vegan perspective.

waste-free lunches part 3: drinks

2008-07-24T09:14:00.003-04:00

Khymi has a stainless steel water bottle with a sport top. It's durable and washable and it replaced her old polycarbonate water bottle in light of all the concerns over BPA. The problem with stainless steel, though, is that it's a conductor--heat and cold go straight through it. We have neoprene insulating sleeves for our stainless steel bottles, but even those only help for so long. So for day camp, where they don't offer refrigeration, we filled up Khymi's water bottle the night before and froze it, leaving a little room at the top for expansion (if you forget to do this, the bottle will get a rounded bottom like a Weeble--we learned the hard way). The only nice thing about stainless steel's lack of insulation is that it cools down really fast in the freezer.

One part of caring for a kid that I haven't really been able to get with is the supposed inevitability of JUICE. Look at the fruit juice aisle in every supermarket and there are tons of choices, many intended specifically for kids. And any juice company who knows anything about marketing to kids knows that they have to offer their product in lunch-sized boxes as well as bottles. But when you think about it, why? What's so essential about juice?

Since I started eating more locally, one thing I really had to reconsider was juice. I used to buy orange juice every week, but here in the Mid-Atlantic there's no such thing as local orange juice. And really, almost any other fruit juice is the same way. Even if it's organic, 100% juice, who knows where it really came from, or how much energy was used to produce and package it?

So now we buy local milk, and we drink filtered tap water. Every now and then, as a treat, we buy a glass bottle of juice or a couple of cans of organic sparkling fruit "soda" from the store. And one of the pleasures of autumn is the arrival of apple cider at the farmers' market.

For these hot summer days at camp, we felt like it was more important to provide Khymi with enough cold water to drink than to satisfy her (typical kid's) desire for a sweet drink like juice. True, juice contains some vitamins and other nutrients, but for that purpose I'd rather she just have the whole fruit. If we happen to have juice at home, we're happy to give her a glass with an afternoon snack or with dinner.

Eliminating something we previously took for granted, like juice, brings me to tomorrow's final post: the behind-the-scenes trash in a portable meal.

waste-free lunches part 2: food

2008-07-23T09:22:00.004-04:00

Jacob takes a lunch to work with him every day, and it's usually some sort of leftovers from dinner. We try to make a big batch of some all-in-one dish at the beginning of the week so he'll get a few days' worth of lunches out of it. But that plan wasn't going to work for Khymi--for one thing, Jacob keeps a microwaveable bowl at the office so he can heat up his leftovers (no such luck at camp), and for another thing, kids are less keen on eating the exact same thing several days in a row.

Two things seem to increase lunch appeal for kids: small tastes of many different foods, and some sort of interactive element. I don't doubt that this is what made Lunchables such a huge hit when they were first introduced. If you're my age, you remember the advent of Lunchables--little cracker sandwiches that the kids can build themselves, and a miniature dessert or drink, all in a seemingly space-age disposable tray. (And if you're anything like me, you were annoyed that your parents unjustly denied you the coolness of Lunchables and continued to send you to school with sandwiches, yogurt and fruit.) So we tried keep that in mind in order to re-create the Lunchables experience--without all the packaging and preservatives.

Here are some of the different foods we tried out:
-Pita pockets with hummus and lettuce, with sliced tomatoes in a separate container to be added on top before eating (prevents sogginess)
-Tortillas with separate containers of egg salad and fixins, to be made into roll-ups at lunchtime
-Regular sandwiches (peanut butter & jam, hummus & pesto spread with lettuce and the separate-tomato container)
-Cold leftovers from dinner (cold sesame noodles, pasta with veggies, rice and beans)
-Carrot sticks or cucumber slices with hummus or dip
-Fresh fruit
-Dried fruit or trail mix
-Granola bars

We sat down with Khymi before she started camp and asked what some of her favorite lunches and snacks are. She's homeschooled, so she's not exactly used to brown-bagging it, but she does bring lunches and snacks to swim meets, as well as on the roughly four-hour ride between here and her mom's house. I think she appreciated being involved in the planning, as well as picking out ingredients at the farmers market and the store, and helping grow vegetables in our home garden (she has unofficially given herself the job of "lettuce washer"). In my experience, you're more likely to appreciate what's put in front of you (no matter how old you are) if you had some hand in the process--growing, buying or cooking.

Tomorrow I'll talk a little about drinks and ditching the juice box. See you then!

waste-free lunches part 1: lunchboxes, containers, utensils

2008-07-22T10:33:00.004-04:00

[Note: I know a picture is worth a thousand words, and it might be more effective to show, not tell, but I'd rather readers make their own consumer decisions. Hence the verbal descriptions with no links to products or pictures containing brand labels, although there are a few cases where I don't mind making an exception. In general, I know that anyone reading this is savvy enough to find what works best for them.]

The last time Jacob packed day-camp lunches for Khymi, she was in a half-day camp. She was five, and we had gotten her a small, simple, one-compartment insulated bag. This time, we realized that that wasn't going to cut it for an older kid at a full-day camp where she'd be involved in lots of physical activity. We went for a bigger, more durable ripstop soft-sided lunch box, with separate insulated and non-insulated compartments and space for a cold pack. Other criteria: lead-free, no "licensed characters" (i.e. our kid is not advertising for Viacom unless they pay us...sorry, Dora).

One of the reasons the lunch box needed to be so big is that we knew we wouldn't be using plastic bags. We've amassed a pretty big pile of food savers, from cheaper "disposable" plastic containers to multi-packs in various sizes, to a lunch container with a built-in spoon and fork in the lid. Reusable containers are the way to go, but they are a less efficient use of space, so we had to consider that in buying a big enough lunch box.

Apart from the lunch box, we already had all of those containers, so we didn't need to go around gratuitously buying lots of new stuff. But I have to say that if we had been starting from scratch, I would have seriously considered a Laptop Lunch or some other neat little bento- or tiffin-like contraption. In retrospect, I also think we should have bought a lunch box with a detachable carrying strap.

Sometimes it did make a lot more sense to pack a dry snack like crackers or trail mix in a bag instead of a plastic food saver, so it could go in the smaller, non-insulated compartment. In these cases, we used one of our small cotton produce bags.

One nifty (if somewhat gimmicky) new container I found was this one, which has a lower compartment for fruit, vegetables or granola and an upper one for dip or yogurt, with a small cold pack that snaps in between. The problems were that it was a little bulky to fit in a lunch box, and although I found it easy to handle, the seven-year-old had trouble closing the lid of the top container tightly enough to prevent leaking. I think it might be a better sort of thing for an adult or an older child.

As for utensils, one of the containers comes with plastic utensils, but otherwise we'd just throw in some silverware from home. We also included a cloth napkin instead of paper.

Tomorrow: what all we put in those containers!

the quest for healthy, waste-free lunches

2008-07-21T23:00:00.001-04:00

[Note: There's a chance that some of you might have had the tenacity to read this in its original format after I posted it on Monday afternoon. Since then I've decided that it was really long and worth breaking up into multiple posts.]

One change we know we have to make when we add a growing seven-year-old to our household is the amount of food we buy. Besides the additional food we eat at meal times, having a kid in the house means meeting the frequent demand for between-meal snacks. Our first instinct when we want a snack to is to reach for the bag of tortilla chips, but now we also stock up more at the farmers market for fresh fruits and vegetables to snack on, and we make a lot of air-popped popcorn and homemade yogurt.

Because of our schedules, Khymi spends part of her time here going to day camp. Last year, she went to a camp that provided a "kid-friendly" lunch that turned out to include a lot of processed meats (lunch meat, chicken nuggets), processed cheeses, packaged chips and pretzels, and also some fresh fruit. It was nice for us not to have to bother packing a lunch, and it gave Khymi one less thing to keep track of, but we also felt like the food options could have been healthier and more varied. Khymi isn't the only kid I know who will happily eat healthy, whole foods if that's what's provided (she puts our eating habits at her age to shame). For some reason, "kid-friendly" often ends up meaning salty, sweet, starchy, bland, processed and over-packaged. (Take a look at any kids' menu anywhere and it's plain to see why so many parents are frustrated with the assumption that their kids are incapable of making healthy food choices.)

This year, we chose two day camps within walking distance of our house. Neither one provided a lunch. After last summer, it was kind of a relief to have more control over what Khymi was eating, but also a challenge, because we knew we'd have to come up with a healthy lunch and snacks every weekday for the time she was in camp. We were also dreading inevitable encounters with the more wasteful aspects of bag lunches: juice boxes, individual packages, and countless plastic baggies. As it turns out, we were able to make wholesome, kid-friendly lunches with little to no disposable waste. Over the next few days, I'll be posting what we've learned in four installments:

Lunchboxes, containers, utensils
Food
Drinks
"Hidden" waste reduction

Check back soon!

we're still alive.

2008-07-21T10:52:00.004-04:00

Well, for the last three weeks, we've had a small person living here. In case you have kids and you were wondering what it's like to be a primarily non-custodial parent with no other children:

Imagine your life before you had any kids. Waiting until 8 PM to decide what to eat for dinner, not really caring about the cleanliness of your floors, leaving sharp objects lying around, staying out late on the weekends, using swear words liberally...then imagine your life as it is right now. Which is a good life, and can be immensely rewarding, but in a different way, right?

Then imagine time-traveling between those two states on a regular basis. That's kind of what it's been like for Jacob, I think, and if you also imagine that your child entered your life as a fully-formed, potty-trained and otherwise competent four-year-old, that's kind of what it's been like for me. It's becoming important to me, though, when I discuss these things, not to rely too much on that imagery. It's something I'd like to post about in more detail soon.

I've been doing a lot of thinking like this since Khymi arrived, about how being a stepmother has changed my life, about which changes are similar to those associated with becoming a (legal/biological) parent and which ones are very different. I've also been noticing the changing face of the American family, and how more often than not, popular culture fails to reflect it. And I've been trying to think of ways to share my thoughts here without getting too personal, because so little of what I see on the Internet deals with experiences like mine or families like ours.

These days, more of our time is spent at the pool than on the blogs. But hopefully soon we'll get in some posts dealing with consumer waste, specifically food packaging (how's that for a change of subject?). Individually-wrapped food items are maddeningly ubiquitous, but also surprisingly avoidable...stay tuned.

NWL on Kojo

2008-07-08T21:46:00.003-04:00

Nice White Lady, a.k.a. my mom, is going to be on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show tomorrow talking about a longtime favorite topic (can you tell?): clothing and gender. Check it out!

The show is the second in a three-part series about clothing and culture. She was also on last Wednesday to discuss sustainable/ethical fashion--audio is still available online.

In other news, hi. I'll be back soon.

PSA

2008-06-12T12:24:00.004-04:00

So, this whole blog thing is kind of all over the place. There are bloggers out there who have a purpose. Here, not so much. We are what some would call a marketing nightmare. Good thing that's not the point in our case. We're just talking to anyone who cares to listen.

But anyway, even when you have no purpose, there comes a time when your right sidebar gets too long, and you think it might be nice to also have a left sidebar. And you discover that your blogging system of choice ("the poor man's Wordpress/MoveableType/TypePad/AnythingReally") isn't too versatile in this regard. Which is why I am glad there are people out there who know a little CSS, like the good ol' Blogger Guide. They share this stuff for free, so I am giving credit where credit is due.

In other news: our power went out for 56 hours last week right when the heat wave hit, leaving us with no ceiling fan, no any kind of fan, and no refrigerated food. Then it was still hot. Ridiculously hot. Cat-won't-sleep-anywhere-but-the-bathroom-floor hot. Now Father's Day is closing in, and certain daughters/stepmoms might want to get their act together...

yogurt redux

2008-06-04T10:04:00.005-04:00

Ever since we got interested in making yogurt (again, thanks to inspiration from Mama Monster), we've found a few different methods that all seem to work. And since then, when I mention that we've started making our own, the next thing I usually hear is, "How?"

Making yogurt is kind of a ridiculously simple but fascinating process. Methods vary, but they always involve the same basic steps:

Heat milk (of any kind: whole, skim, soy, goat, whatever you prefer) to about 185°F to kill any bad bacteria, but not so hot that the milk curdles
Cool it to about 110°F - 120°F (opinions vary, but this is about the temperature that will get the yogurt cultures all happy)
Add good bacteria (active yogurt cultures) in the form of a couple tablespoons of yogurt from a previous batch, or from store-bought plain yogurt
Somehow keep the milk warm for 8 - 12 hours so the cultures can do their thing. In this warm environment, they begin to reproduce, eat the lactose (dairy sugar) in the milk and release lactic acid, which is what makes yogurt taste sour. The increase in acidity also makes the milk thicker. Once the yogurt is chilled, the cultures slow down and go back to sleep. Wow! Science!

How you heat the milk, how you check the temperature, and how you keep the milk warm are the variables, and they depend on what you have or what you are willing to buy.

The easiest option for many people is to buy a home yogurt maker. It takes the guesswork out of the heating and cooling, and automatically maintains the optimum temperature for you. It does use electricity, but if you don't have the time to be watching over a pot of milk, it might be a worthwhile investment.

If you have an electric heating pad, try the detailed instructions at MakeYourOwnYogurt.com. We used this method for a while, even though we don't have a heating pad. We just piled a bunch of towels over the pot of milk to keep it warm.

If you have a microwave and a Thermos, try Bean Sprouts' method. Melanie also includes a handy troubleshooting list and an extra step to make thicker Greek-style yogurt.

Just wing it. I recently showed up for a workshop with the PermiBus folks on their Skills for a New Millennium tour, prepared to make a water jacket and use a candy thermometer like in the MakeYourOwnYogurt directions. While a candy or dairy thermometer is a handy thing to have, it's probably not essential. The people at the workshop suggested a couple of rough measures to tell if your milk is the right temperature: When it starts to froth and form a skin, it's hot enough. When it's bath temperature (i.e. hot, but not so hot you'd scald yourself), it's cool enough to add the cultures. They made the yogurt directly in glass mason jars, which eliminates having to put it in a storage container once it's done.

So there are some options. The way we've been doing it recently is heating the milk directly in a pot on the stove, putting the starter yogurt at the bottom of a couple of pre-heated 24-ounce mason jars, pouring the milk in the jars, stirring and closing the lids tightly. Then we roll up the jars in towels and leave them all day or overnight. When it's done, we stir vigorously and stick the yogurt in the fridge. The end!

Homemade yogurt is thinner than most store-bought yogurt, because the manufacturers usually add a thickener like pectin or gelatin (if you use a store-bought yogurt as a starter, make sure there aren't any such additives; just milk and active cultures). If you want to thicken your yogurt, use Bean Sprouts' straining method (link above).

Why make your own yogurt?

It's cheaper (ours works out to be about half the price of store-bought)
No waste; no plastic containers piling up
You know exactly what's in it

And it's delicious! I like it as a snack with fruit or jam, for breakfast with muesli, or in smoothies (hello, frozen strawberries). You can also use it as a substitute in recipes that call for buttermilk. Or make a sort of raita by mixing a few tablespoons with a pinch of salt and some chopped fresh herbs like mint, chives, or if you're into that kind of thing, cilantro. Great as a condiment with spicy foods.

Go forth and multiply some bacteria!

people doing good things

2008-06-01T23:59:00.003-04:00

Author Sharon Astyk has been running her style of blog challenge for about a month now:

The idea is that people get into the habit of promoting food independence in their everyday lives. It's a blog challenge, so people check in each week to report how much they've planted, harvested, managed, etc.--a good use of the "online support group" aspect of blogging. I haven't been committed enough to the blog thing recently to check in, but I've had Sharon's list in my head almost every day as I think of what to do next.

We joined the Great Sunflower Project, whose goal is to track bees' presence in as many locations in North America as possible. They send you free sunflower seeds, and assuming your sunflowers grow, you sit and watch the sunflowers once a week to see how many bees visit them.

Last, but certainly not least, some of our neighbors right here in our city have started a community garden on a large vacant lot. Check out Food Not Blight to read their story.

what else is new

2008-05-29T15:31:00.020-04:00

I started reading a new book called Homestead Year, written in the early- to mid-1990s when many of the back-to-the-land folks had since gone back-to-the-yuppie-suburbs and Al Gore was just a boring vice president. At least to me--but I was about ten years old during the title year and really wasn't concerned with a lot more than how many different colors of slouch socks I owned.
Anyway, so far, so good. Although I would like to say I'm a little tired of authors who talk about farming on a humble acre of land. With all due respect, cry me a river, guys. Come take a look at our streetcar suburb lot of about a sixth of an acre, plagued by a north-facing slant, too much shade, and the ever-encroaching bamboo and ailanthus, and maybe you will feel a little better. Not only that, but this is the most land I've lived on since I lived with my parents. Up until this year, I was lucky to have a rooftop or a balcony for a little outdoor space. But I suppose the point here is that however small our space may seem to us, we've got to try to make the best of it. (Jacob often refers me to the story of the cow in the house).

One way I found to use less space is potatoes planted in an old trash can:

This is one of many, many experiments we've got going on in the garden. It's pretty much all experiments right now, because we barely know what we're doing, and this is our first season living here. But the potatoes have been pretty easy so far:
I just scrubbed out an old trash can and rinsed with hot water and distilled vinegar, drilled several holes in the bottom, planted some seed potatoes in some soil at the bottom of the trash can and they've gone from there. Every time they get a few inches taller, we cover them with old dead leaves, coir or light soil. I planted these in March, so supposedly in a couple more months, the plants will flower and die back and we'll have a trash can full of potatoes. I'll believe it when I see it...potatoes and root crops make me nervous because you can't see what's going on! But I really hope it works, because this has probably been one of the easiest projects.

The collard greens were an impulse buy of Jacob's at the co-op one day, and they were really suffering for a while, but now they are doing well. I love collard greens. I just want to bite 'em. (Upon further inspection, it looks like something has, in fact, bitten them. Hm...)

Here's another experiment. We had an old birdbath lying under our deck, so I thought I'd plant something with shallow roots in it, like lettuce. Cute idea, but kind of stupid, seeing as how birdbaths do not drain. I don't want to use this as a real birdbath, though, because we have a crazy mosquito problem around here.

What else is on the deck?
Ah, yes. As you can see, we do not have a clothesline yet. It seems like money evaporates when the weather gets warm. It's on the list, and the drying rack works fine for now.

In front of the house is Khymi's flowerbed, a lesson in delayed gratification. There are zinnias, cosmos, and...some other stuff. We take care of it when she's not here, but we still let her take most of the credit.

I have been waiting and waiting for these lovely peonies to bloom. See, I am not a pink hater.

The newest thing out front is our tomato trellis. We saw a blurb about tomato trellising in Organic Gardening and thought we might as well get some use out of that damned bamboo. We'll be growing cucumbers, and maybe pole beans, on the tripods. The bed is a lasagna garden with layers of coir, municipal leaf compost, decomposed horse manure, and our backyard compost. More experiments!

Here's something we did not grow:
Mulberries! There is a big, huge mulberry tree, and we didn't even notice last summer because it was later on when we moved here. Naturally, it is over the the driveway, so we have had to park our (white) car on the street for the past few days. Anyway, you can see that a lot of them are just about to ripen! A few have ripened already, and I got about a pound this afternoon just by shaking the branches within my reach:

(The white petals are from an adjacent tree).

I don't adore the taste of mulberries, but they're good, and there are so many that we thought we ought to do something with them. I've read that they make good wine, but we don't have the equipment for that. Any other suggestions?

Remember how pleased we were when we finally conquered the bamboo back in February? Sure enough, it's back with a vengeance:

Ugh. It's growing faster than we can keep up with it. Let's talk about something else.

Like jam! Look at those little jars. They just look happy. I didn't think it would be possible, but almost all the strawberries are used up or frozen.

Well, that's where we're at, and it's almost June. With any luck, I'll have much to report in a month or two. Hope you're all enjoying these sunny days.

jackson!

2008-05-26T17:39:00.005-04:00

Along with strawberry season came a baby named Jackson. As of Thursday morning, the ~~queen of the mountain~~ only kid at the Small Red House is now also the ~~omnipotent ringleader~~ eldest of three over at Family Hack. We hear everyone's doing great and we wish them the very best!

looking for berries, berries for jam.

2008-05-25T20:08:00.005-04:00

Yes sir.

You're looking at fifty pounds of strawberries. On Saturday, the people in the small red house, plus one cousin, dragged themselves out of bed to spend the morning at a local pick-your-own farm. (Well, those of us under the age of 16 did not require any dragging). A more perfect day you couldn't have asked for--not too hot, blue sky, and rows upon rows of beautiful ripe berries.

There is just nothing like strawberries in season. There was a certain giddiness among all the visitors at the farm, kind of like when the kids in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory first walk into the room made of candy. Kids of all ages were scrambling around among the rows, their zeal renewed when they'd come across a good spot or a particularly outstanding specimen (I heard my fair share of, "Ima! Look how big THIS one is!!!")...a good time was had by all and I recommend it for all ages, if you're not growing your own berries. Local small-scale farmers could use our support.

Anyway, we got home and realized that we had just brought fifty pounds of strawberries into our house. So today Jacob and I and aforementioned cousin spent the afternoon cooking and canning strawberry jam and preserves. The rest we're dipping in chocolate or just plain devouring, or freezing (to be used later in pies, ice cream, smoothies, popsicles...)

This has all made me feel rather insecure about our little strawberry jar outside with a few measly plants and halfhearted berries. But we're still excited for what the rest of the season has in store.

pink at the rink: some thoughts on children and gender

2008-05-14T17:34:00.010-04:00

It's official: I am becoming my mother.

Okay, let's back up. A while back, I started taking ice skating lessons. Or rather, re-started. When I was in elementary school I was a half-decent figure skater, but then I stopped when I was about eleven. I was 4'9". Now I'm 5'9". So I thought I would re-learn some of the skills now that I'm a lot farther from the ground than before.

Anyway, one day I was at the ice rink lacing up my skates, observing a group of young parents and their group of young skaters and their siblings; about ten children, mostly girls, maybe ages 2 - 5. Every single girl was wearing something pink. I counted. At least one article of clothing each, but in some cases a lot more. Pink shoes, pink scarves, pink jackets, pink gloves. Jeans with pink-themed embroidery and appliqués. Pink barrettes. All of them.

Why? Are they afraid people won't know they're girls? Or, the more likely explanation--pink is hard to avoid when you're buying girls' clothing.
I don't have anything against pink itself. It's an inherently nice color, one that occurs in nature in the form of beautiful cherry blossoms, seashells and birds' feathers, not to mention all of our own bodies' mucus membranes (okay, maybe not the most pleasant image). I will also freely admit that despite this claim, I own hardly any pink clothing.

Many people I know have made the good point that rejecting pink because it's a "girly" color is just as bad as insisting on it. It's still an acceptance of the idea of pink as feminine, when really you should just choose according to your preference no matter what. This makes sense, and it would make more sense if our preferences weren't completely skewed by the culture we live in. If we could all make truly unbiased decisions, don't you think that some men and boys would prefer pink and pastels too (I know, besides the frat guys who wear pink polo shirts to be ironic)? Why should it be women's responsibility to reject or reclaim something when the point is ultimately that color shouldn't indicate gender?

A couple years ago, I spotted a posting on Craigslist:

Looking to trade Bumbo seats, I'll take any color! Just can't stand putting my boy in purple!

Really, I think this is interesting. It's remarkable to me that pink is so completely inescapable in the girls' section, but even more telling is its conspicuous absence from the boys' section (does anyone ever wish there were just a kids' section?). At least girls can wear "masculine" clothing (those are huge incredulous quotation marks) if they want, and no one's really the wiser. It's cute if a girl wears boys' clothing. It's tomboyish. It's endearing...sort of in the way that it's endearing when a child dresses up like an adult. (You'll see what I mean in a minute).

But heaven help the boy who wants to wear girls' clothing. Heaven help that Craigslist parent who got stuck with the lavender (yes, it's actually lavender) Bumbo seat. I honestly wonder what this person envisions--how this lavender apparatus might scar his or her child so. Will he take on "feminine" qualities from this piece of obviously girly plastic? Will he become...sensitive? Nurturing? Artistic? Vulnerable? Sympathetic? Reserved? What a failure this child could become! A blue Bumbo seat, stat!

I think it's the universal undesirability of "femininity" that says the most about our culture. We could look at things like careers, but let's stick with appearance to keep it simple. Comfort and practicality aside, a woman wearing "masculine" clothing (work overalls, a loose-fitting Oxford shirt, or a necktie) in our modern context is seen as strong, daring and even intelligent. A man wearing a skirt, however, is generally considered bizarre and sometimes perverse. Parents can feel free to buy red, yellow, blue and green for their daughters, but they wouldn't dare put their sons in lavender or pink. What this tells me is that it's fine for the subordinate group to try and emulate the dominant, but put the other way around, it seems...backwards. And that means that (surprise!) women are still an inferior class.

I don't know. Call me stuck in the second wave, but I don't think it's so great that girls and women (or rather, the large companies that manufacture our clothing) are reclaiming pink. A real change with have come when a) men can feel comfortable being "feminine" as much as women are comfortable being "masculine" and b) eventually the current concepts of masculine and feminine have blurred to the point of being almost indistinguishable.

I realize that it seems completely counterintuitive that women should somehow need validation from men to prove that femininity is obsolete, but that's just it: it's just gender. I'm not looking to preserve it. Sex, for the most part, is undeniable. Women will always be women. Men will always be men. Adult men and women have some physical differences that make certain clothing more practical for one sex than for another, but guess what? When you're a kid, those differences are much fewer. Children's bodies are almost exactly the same until they hit puberty. Separate kinds of underpants should be pretty much all you need. The rest is all gender. It's noise. It's an empty signifier.

I've been thinking a lot about all of this recently, because it seems like a lot of people in my life are having babies, and I've been hearing a lot of, "It's a good thing/it's too bad _____ is having a boy/girl because ______." If it's not their first child, there's talk of hand-me-downs and whether or not they'll be useful.

Today, the comments on SouleMama's latest post said it all over again: multiple uses of the words 'sweet' and 'adorable', and lots of people either being grateful they have a girl so they can make sweet, adorable clothes, or wishing they had a girl for whom to make sweet, adorable clothes. (To be fair, Amanda Soule's sons have beautiful clothes, too, and they seem to love the domestic arts as well, which I think is great). But it left me thinking, boys (little, baby boys even!) can't be sweet, delicate and adorable?

Wouldn't it be great if there were just kids' clothes, and nobody had to buy a whole new wardrobe for an opposite-sex younger sibling? What a victory against consumer culture that would be!

The reason I say I'm becoming my mother is that gender in children's clothing has been one of her main research areas since before I was born (at this point, she could write a book...hmm). I guess I've learned to notice stuff like this.

Notice is one thing, practice is another. I've never had a baby and I don't fully know the questions gender can present. My stepdaughter came into my life at age four, with a full wardrobe and some preferences already in place. I'm interested in hearing about the experiences and thoughts of parents who have had small children, especially those who have had both boys and girls. What place does gender have in this 21st-century generation of kids?

dear internet

2008-05-01T22:25:00.005-04:00

I've been on a self-imposed sort of blog hiatus recently. I've been meeting some new people and spending a little time with old friends and family. And I've been thinking a lot about the people behind the blogs.

In The Phantom Tollbooth there is a character named the Dodecahedron. A dodecahedron is a three-dimensional shape with twelve pentagonal faces. And the Dodecahedron has twelve faces, each with a different emotion. I sometimes think of people as various polyhedra, with many different faces.

The weird thing about this culture on the internet is it makes it possible for us to conveniently show only the faces we choose to show. Usually we like to show the happy face, or the pleased face, or the proud face. And after a while we end up with these constructions of people that aren't really people. Just a few faces.

Blogs and social networking have been presenting me with the same few themes, with some exceptions. Themes somewhat like these:
-Here Is My Expertly Photographed Family and All of My Good Parenting Decisions at Work!
-I Heard About This New Thing/Method/Tip/Or Maybe Totally Meaningless Information First.
-Let's All Talk About What Good People We Are!
-I Will Admit I'm Flawed, But In A Funny Way!

I don't mean to sound disparaging. I enjoy participating when it comes to subjects like these, no doubt. But sometimes I wonder about the real people, the real stories. What's your first memory? What was the worst fight you had with your spouse/partner? What would you consider the low point in your relationship with your parents? When was the last time you cried? What have you done that really made you wonder if you were a bad parent?

If you answer these types of questions in list form, it's called a meme and it's considered an act of self-pity. But hardly anyone likes to discuss these things at length or with any degree of sincerity. If we show our less impressive faces, we have to use some sort of defense mechanism (sarcasm, irony, "snarkiness"). Maybe because we're afraid of marring our spotless self-constructed internet images.

I understand that there's a line between public and private life, and it's up to each of us to determine what that means to us. But it's strange that "public" usually automatically means what we consider the best sides.

My friend has two beautiful and creative children, and up until somewhat recently, was half of one of the coolest couples I knew. Her world turned upside-down when she and her husband split up. But she kept blogging. She kept being sincere and sharing what she felt comfortable sharing. I think that's admirable.

The author of one of the funniest "parenting blogs" around, Finslippy, recently chose to share with her hundreds (thousands?) of readers that she had suffered a miscarriage.

Breakups happen. I know; if nothing else, we stepparents wouldn't be around if it weren't for breakups. Miscarriages happen. Grief happens. People are vulnerable. We get sad. We make mistakes. We aren't perfect.

I'm not saying the blogosphere should be one big therapy session. But personally, I find a little sincerity refreshing. It's nice to hear someone is going through what you might be going through, or what you've already been through.

I haven't noticed a unity of opposites in our culture. We want the best, the greatest, the happiest and the most perfect. Maybe we should try to accept more of a balance, an equilibrium.

I'm thinking about how I might approach this in the future. For now, a struggle and a pleasure...

I have suffered from mental illnesses for the past decade, or maybe longer--Major Depressive Disorder, which I at least know runs in my family, and ADHD, the origins of which I'm less sure. I have done badly in school despite being quite intelligent, and sometimes I have struggled to be a productive adult. My mental health has been the single greatest burden I have carried in my life.

Today I turned twenty-six. I watched ants crawl around the sticky buds of a peony, I planted lettuce, and shared a wonderful dinner with someone who loves me. Tomorrow we are getting on the train to go to Vermont. I'm really looking forward to it.

That's the truth.

our cargo bike

2008-04-22T16:08:00.005-04:00

Remember my post about our "new" (old) Craigslist bike? Back in November, when oil was $96 a barrel? Ha ha!

Well, autumn changed into winter, winter changed into spring (ahh, nice). Many a pretty day has come and gone but I kept forgetting to take a picture. So here you go:

Consider it my contribution to Earth Day (although if you want some real perspective, read what my mom has to say).

As you can see, I did install the wire pannier baskets, with the help of the great folks at our local bike co-op. In this picture, I've got my grocery bags in there, ready to go. The woven front basket came from a friend.

We have both really loved riding this bike so far. We're fortunate in that we're about the same height, so we can share.

What you can't see is that there are two glass milk bottles in that green bag. It's taken a little improvisation to figure what to do with fragile groceries, but I've found that making a "bumper" out of something softer (a bag of rice, maybe) to go in between the bottles works well. Eggs are a challenge, too, but not as much if I remember to bring along a dish towel in which to wrap the carton, and pack it in a secure position. So far we haven't had any bike-related mishaps (knock on wood).

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I might try riding longer distances. The less I have to get in that car, the better.

curds and whey

2008-04-20T22:47:00.005-04:00

For the last few weeks, I've been making the household's weekly quart o' yogurt. Praise is due to Mama Monster, although our yogurt technique is more low-tech. Just follow these simple directions and you too can change a quart of milk (plus a couple spoonfuls of yogurt) into a quart (plus a few spoonfuls) of yogurt! All you need is two pots, a kitchen thermometer, a towel, and some heat.

At least for the milk and yogurt we get, it's actually much cheaper to just buy the milk and turn it into yogurt ourselves ($2.25 for a quart of milk vs $4.00 for a quart of yogurt).

Every beginner's bound to slip up sometime, though. Witness today, when I left the improvised double-boiler to heat up about a hundred degrees above 110°F. The water boiled, the bacteria got crazy and died, the milk curdled and separated, and I got disappointed. Considering I had made a double batch this time to bring some for a work colleague, I pouted and kvetched to Maria all evening long.

But Maria saved the evening with an inspirational turn of phrase:

"When life gives you schlimazel, make cheese!"

And thus, dear readers, was born Schlimazel Cheese. Or maybe Schlimazel Quark.

The full array: bowl, strainer, spoon, cheesecloth, salt. That's all it takes, folks, for reals.

current events

2008-04-18T23:32:00.006-04:00

[In the car. Khymi and I have just heard the subject of today's Talk of the Nation Science Friday. I explain that the people on the radio are talking about the President's (losership) plan for what we should do about global warming]...

Khymi: Well, why doesn't he want them to stop polluting?
Maria: He has to care about a lot of different problems as President. And I think maybe he worries more about these companies making enough money than about--
Khymi: Snow???

[more talk of what the next President might do differently, the elections]

[Khymi ponders]

"...I wish I were a grown-up. ...No, I wish I were a fairy."

Grown-ups' powers are finite. It's a sad fact.

the buy nothing challenge and i

2008-04-17T12:29:00.002-04:00

This month I'm participating in Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge. It's gone pretty well so far. Of course, it's easy not to buy stuff when you really can't afford to, although it seems like folks manage to do that, too. My problem was, I actually had some stuff I had planned to buy this month. But a couple of loopholes in the challenge rules made it possible: it's okay to buy supplies for growing your own food (ha-ha) and it's okay to buy stuff used.

Here is what I've allowed myself to spend money on since the beginning of the month:

gas (ugh)
groceries
car maintenance
a haircut (nothing more)
gardening tools (a start-up investment and hopefully a one-time purchase)
a couple of serendipitous trips to the thrift store (where I actually did find a pair of roller skates that fits Khymi, miraculously; ten 24-ounce mason jars, and an old one of these for 69 cents)
a literary magazine and a ticket to a play at the Baltimore '68 conference
reasonably-priced dinner with a friend

I think that's all. And I think most of it (arguably) falls under stuff that's allowed, since most of it isn't actually stuff, and almost none of what is stuff is newly-manufactured.

What's been nice about the challenge so far is that I've also felt inspired to get rid of some stuff--since I'm a little bit of a thrift store addict (shopping there isn't what I would consider a sacrifice), I made a rule for myself that I have to take something to donate any time I want to buy something. As a result, I've also had to think more about buying stuff that will last for a long time--stuff I won't just want to get rid of in a couple of years. I've also had to think about what I can just make myself instead of buying (most of this falls under the food category anyway, though...more on that later).

Maybe, come May, I'll be up for the Extreme Eco Throwdown.

FYI: King Corn on PBS tonight

2008-04-15T15:41:00.004-04:00

Tonight we'll be watching the new documentary about our country's corn industry, King Corn, for free on PBS's Independent Lens. (Follow the link to check your local listings--for folks in our area, it'll be on WETA Channel 26 at 10 PM).

Hope you get to see it, too!

little farmers

2008-04-15T14:33:00.004-04:00

We were happy to have Khymi here for a few days last week. It seemed like she wanted to spend every spare moment in the garden, getting friends and neighbors in on the action whenever possible. Even just in the last year, I feel like she's gone from being this little kid who constantly needs help (or thinks she does) to being capable of just about anything. Sometimes she still needs a step stool, though.

treat yourself to some greenergy

2008-04-06T15:31:00.005-04:00

A few months ago, my nearby aunt and uncle told us that our local energy provider, Pepco, offers 100% wind power. A little investigation revealed that Pepco does indeed have a private subsidiary, Pepco Energy Services, that offers residential power generation/transmission from either (1) 100% wind sources or (2) a mix of wind, solar, hydro, and biomass.

Great, think the skeptics, but only chi-chi yuppies can afford the whole "green" racket, right?

Sorry, dear skeptics, but the price tag for either source turns out to be only TWO CENTS more per kWh than your nasty (NOT the least bit "clean") coal or nuclear power. Last month, this amounted to a difference of SEVEN DOLLARS.

(We opted for wind because we were uneasy about some of the ecological dangers of hydroelectric dams and biomass. And because windmills are just doggone cool, notwithstanding the NIMBY naysayers.)

Honestly, coal and nuclear just aren't as pretty.

To recap:
For seven dollars a month, you can
(a) save part of the world's oldest mountains, North America's largest contiguous forest, and lots of poor folks' lives, homes, schools, drinking water, roads, and health, all of which are destroyed by destructive mountaintop removal mining,
(b) save tons of carbon emissions at the other end of the coal power process, thereby helping stop global warming,
(c) save tons of other pollutant emissions from coal-fired power plants, and
(c) reduce the dangers for humans and other life from nuclear waste, nuclear energy production, and nuclear catastrophe (not that nuclear production offers much for efficient carbon reduction, either).

How about that, folks?

Now, of course, that cost difference (i.e., our $7) varies with power consumption. But cutting down on power use is easily within a household's grasp: the key is just to unplug or shut off ("standby" doesn't count!) things you're not using anyway, such as phone chargers, coffee makers, stereos, TVs, microwaves, computers, and so forth. They're not doing anything but costing you money!

Aha, pipe up the skeptics, this is all well and good for you Marylanders with your Pepco, but who's to say we could get a similar deal in Minnesota, Wyoming, Maine, etc.?

Oho, quoth we in the Small Red House, who's to say you can't?

welcome little M

2008-04-06T13:52:00.003-04:00

Our friends at nurtureblog have a new daughter! Congrats to mother, father and big brother N :)

live from baltimore '68

2008-04-04T10:23:00.014-04:00

Well, not really. I don't have a laptop, so I'm in a computer lab. But anyway, this weekend at the University of Baltimore, we're looking back forty years.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed on April 4, 1968 in Memphis. Here in Baltimore, and in cities across the country, the proverbial camel's back broke as people looted, burned and destroyed their own neighborhoods out of anger and exasperation. Some of Baltimore's neighborhoods are just beginning to recover; some never recovered.

What does this have to do with me, someone who wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye in 1968 (in fact, the year my parents met)? For the last year, I have been helping out as an intern with Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth, UB's project studying the riots and their aftermath. My job as a student oral historian has been to interview Baltimoreans who lived through the riots about their experiences, and to transcribe and edit the interviews so they can be archived as oral histories for future researchers.

(continue reading by clicking "full post")

I initially took the internship because I was looking for part-time work, and because I have a tolerance (a preference, even) for tedious, time-consuming, single-task activity like transcribing and editing. I didn't really expect that I'd be hearing such incredible stories from such a diverse scope of interviewees, younger and older, black and white.

What I also didn't expect was what more I'd learn about Martin Luther King, whose name has become as ubiquitous as Thomas Jefferson's but whose deeds and philosophies are just as vaguely perceived. If you'd asked me what I knew about King last year, I'd probably say the same thing most people of my generation would say: something involving preacher and civil rights leader, Montgomery bus boycott, nonviolent protest, "I Have a Dream", assassinated at a young age. That guy.

One of the interviewees (PDF of the transcript here; it's worth a read if you've got the time) gave me a better sense of what it was like to be a young person at the time, pointing out that at the time of King's death he was just as much an anti-war activist as he was a civil rights activist. Before this interview, I had heard the song "Abraham, Martin & John" on the oldies station but I'd never given it a passing thought. Cheesy as it may sound to some, when I've listened to it since I think of how desperate it must have felt to have the great young leaders of one's time disappear within a decade. And on top of that, to be living with a terrible war (sadly, an experience I do know now), but with the added threat of the draft, plus the lingering uneasiness from the Cuban Missile Crisis...one factor on top of the next.

I don't learn history too well from books. Dates and facts tend to kind of blur together on the page. But to hear someone say, "Yes, I remember, the prom was that weekend," or "I was walking home from the bus stop when I ran into the National Guard," or "My father had the finest pharmacy in East Baltimore; he could never go back," makes it less text and more story. In German the words for "story" and "history" are the same: Geschichte, from the root word Schicht, "layer". Somehow I like this image better than "story", like the stories of a building. It has been through many layers of memory that history has begun to offer me some meaning.

Anyway, back to Martin Luther King. One book I did find useful was actually assigned reading for a class that had nothing to do with the riots project. It combined various writings by King with ways to apply his philosophies to leadership. It was interesting to me that King often referred to his nonviolent methods simply as "love". Not affectionate or romantic love, but what he considered pure Christian love, based in part in his own religious upbringing and in part on Gandhi's teachings of satyagraha, love-force or truth-force. This kind of love simply means sincere respect for each person's worth regardless of who he or she is (UU folks: 1st principle, anyone?). Not obligatory or lipservice respect, but respect that comes from a deeper, greater regard and love for humanity and life on Earth (what King might have referred to as God's Creation).

King believed that it was through this love that change was possible. He was clear in explaining that it did not mean allowing one's self to be walked over, or deferring to something one believes is wrong; it did mean approaching what is wrong and unjust with love and justice. He shared experiences wherein those who opposed him would write verbally abusive letters, saying things like, "People like you have no place doing what you're doing; you have no idea what you're talking about. You're completely messing up our country. It's despicable and disgusting and you will pay in the end." (I'm just making this up as an example, because I don't have the book with me, but it was usually something like this, with a lot of what we would now call "'you' statements" and nasty adjectives).

King could have very well responded in the exact same way; in some ways it seems only natural. But he always engaged with his opponents respectfully, politely, sympathetically and with a healthy inquisitiveness. He made it clear that he understood why they felt the way they did, and then patiently and articulately explained and defended his position. King writes that no one will listen unless they feel as though they are being listened to; no one will seek to understand unless they know that they are understood.

This concept of satyagraha or love had a particular resonance for me. It put into words what I have always felt is so universal and yet so seemingly elusive in our time: a pure and exuberant love for others. A love that goes deeper than golden rule, beyond a mindset that uses Number One as the point of reference for all of our interactions.

I especially admired this idea coming from a Christian leader like King. Not once did I read any mention of salvation as a motivator; never did I detect a tone of sanctimoniousness. For King this was not all about Christian virtuousness and piety; it was about love for love's sake alone, a value he also considered essential to his Christian identity. It holds just as much value for non-Christians like me.

Back to the riots...it is both fascinating and perplexing that the untimely death of such a person could send the country into the tailspin it did. In some ways it was the ultimate betrayal; many people felt somehow that God had betrayed them by allowing Martin Luther King to be killed, so what was the use? What was the use in not getting angry? What difference did it make anymore?

If you'd like, I encourage you to read the oral histories we have online (we're still working on a long backup of interview audio). I would love to hear any personal reflections you have if you remember April 4, 1968 and the days that followed--in Baltimore or elsewhere. We still have so much to learn.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young
I just looked around and he's gone.

cheapskate pizza

2008-04-03T14:05:00.002-04:00

Making pizza at home is becoming more popular, as are an arsenal of specialized home-pizza-making supplies. You could use a regular baking sheet for your homemade pie, but some folks will tell you that to get that perfect crispy crust, you need a pizza stone to simulate the stone floor of an old-fashioned wood-burning pizza oven. Better hightail it to your favorite kitchen gadget retailer and pick one up for $35 or more, right?

Wrong. No. No. Step away from the overpriced yuppie merchandise. There is a better way, and you don't have to go any further than your local building supply.

We got this brilliant idea from ~~my next husband~~ Food Network television personality Alton Brown, back when we had cable: Those fancy pizza stones? They're nothing but ceramic tiles. The same thing you can get at Home Depot, Lowe's, or preferably, a surplus building supply place like our beloved Community Forklift.

You can buy an unglazed ceramic tile or quarry tile in the dimensions of your preference for around a dollar. (Do not make the mistake of buying flagstone--it's too lightweight and it will crack at high temperatures.) Take it home, give it a good scrubbing, and voilà! Perfectly crispy homemade pizza, without the gourmet price tag. Mmmm.

spring has sprung!

2008-04-01T17:00:00.011-04:00

You can't see, but there are little lettuce sprouts in the cold frame. I built it myself! It was mostly easy and fun. All you need are:

-An old window (from a junk yard or building surplus)
-Some scrap 2 x 6s or whatever other size lumber you prefer (cut to fit the window and build a box higher in the top than the back, which means you'll have to have two triangle-shaped pieces to create an incline)
-Hinges
-Nails or screws
-A saw
-A tape measure
-Some scrap 2 x 2s or thereabouts for corner posts
-A hasp or latch of some kind (optional)
-Weather stripping (also optional)

The only thing that I couldn't do myself was cut the one piece on the diagonal to make two triangles. I had to have my dad help me because he has a band saw. But if you have and are handy with a rip saw (I do not, and I am not), that is an option, too. I also didn't use carpenter's glue, but that might have been helpful.

I would write more detailed directions, but I didn't have any. I had to figure it out for myself, and I imagine that someone with better visual sense would make fewer mistakes than I did if they just took the time to make a diagram. I just made mistakes anyway, and then took it apart and put it back together again. It worked out in the end.

invisibility

2008-03-27T14:08:00.008-04:00

It was heartening to watch the trailer for The Greenhorns, a documentary film about young people in my generation reclaiming control of our country's foodways through their own small farms. I think it's a good thing that at the same time urban agriculture is starting to take hold, another new ruralism is also growing.

I noticed something in watching the trailer, though. These wonderful young people are so strong, so ambitious, so conscientious, and so...white. I think there was one person of color featured among the many in those few minutes.

Maybe it's because I grew up where I did, in a county where African Americans are the majority (example: at the public middle school I attended, out of 806 students total, there are currently 75 white students--my elementary and high schools were a bit more demographically "even" but still not predominately white). So maybe, when other people might take it for granted, I sometimes notice when the "minorities" (a relative term) are absent--from a restaurant, a church, a school, a film or a social movement.

It's difficult for me to weigh in on this topic without feeling like too much of a nice white lady. I don't really feel like it's my job as a white person to go around proclaiming where people of color's interests ought to lie. Something's wrong with that picture. But I feel like something is also wrong with the picture of the new rural America that I'm seeing--where privileged and socially conscious young white folks can move out to a piece of land somewhere and have the resources to start up, and somehow people of color are always thought of as "urban." African Americans and Latinos have their roots in the land as much as whites do, but one issue is that the rural agricultural legacy for many, at least for the past couple of centuries, is intertwined with one of oppression and imposed poverty. It quickly becomes a more complex subject.

I suppose the greater issue at hand is that farming is seen as either a) something people do who can't do anything better or b) something white people can afford to do for fun because they think it's neat. And really those are both huge myths. I think if more people saw farmers as the proud, self-sufficient, hard-working, intelligent and creative people portrayed in films like The Greenhorns, more people--of all races--would view farming as the admirable, respectable, and even desirable line of work that it is.

And I guess there's a limit to what I can do from my position of privilege. I am glad that I notice when people are invisible, but what next? Besides blogging?

Edit: It's not just me. A recent New York Times article on young farmers was found to contain a significant amount of Stuff White People Like.

summer dreams

2008-03-24T13:07:00.002-04:00

I can tell other people to "live in the moment" all I want, but it's hard for me to take my own advice sometimes.

We've reached that point in our lives wherein spontaneity has lost its place in favor of planning ahead. Not always. Spontaneity isn't dead. But it's gotten to the point where it doesn't make sense to leave everything to the last minute, nor is it really considerate of the other people in our lives...so I've been having to think about the summer a lot.

Today I'm filling out my FAFSA (late). That's something that has to be done months ahead of the fall semester. I haven't picked my fall courses yet, but I have to soon. I'm already registered for my summer class.

And there's so much else going on in the summer...joining the pool, going to the beach, working in the garden, summer chorus, bike riding, not to mention Khymi living with us for an extended period of time, which will involve day camps, swim team, Girl Scout camp, and who knows what else.

Needless to say, my current agenda of writing midterm papers, getting ready for a big conference and waiting for the last frost is kind of lame. It's even too cold to sit on the porch today. My birthday is in May, and usually the weather is beautiful and warm, but it's also inevitably right when everyone's freaking out about finals. Including me.

I can't wait until summer!

seven years

2008-03-17T00:02:00.005-04:00

someone in the Small Red House just had a birthday. well, not "just" exactly: a full weekend of gigs kept a certain parent from hitting the blogs for a full two days after the Ides of March this year. and not "in the SRH" exactly either: she's was at her mama's for her actual birthdate this year, so the Small Red House will mark the occasion next weekend. apparently, scallops and linguine are to be on the menu, but the jury's still out on dessert, although her stepmom and i have a sneaking suspicion it'll involve hamantaschen one way or another.

yes indeedy.
seven long years.
seven tall years.
seven gummy, toothy, toothless, and now even a little toothy-again years.
seven years of Snugli and stroller, car seat and booster, streamers and training wheels, playgrounds and farm, sneakers but mostly sandals and "Princess Shoes".
seven years of one cuddly, careworn "jam-jams" after another in endless succession.
seven years with two families through eight houses (or more?) in four states - small wonder she's so fascinated by geography!
seven years of car rides, bike rides, scooter rides, car rides, shoulder rides, wave-riding, car rides, ice skates, metro rides, car rides, strolls, even a flight or two. and lest we forget, car rides.
seven years of laughing, farming, singing (whether or not anyone is listening), doctor-ing, bossing, hugging, de-tangling, chatting. and now reading!
a few (unforgettable) years of diapers, a few years of crawling, many years of steps and runs and leaps, and seven altogether of dancing.
seven years of jamming with dad, cooking with dad, walking with dad, joking with dad, reading with dad (from english to german to english again), tickling with dad, all-around hanging with dad. all that and more with dad, and all the same (I'm sure) and more with mama.

piled together thus, all these parts of speech come in a bunch, as if the past were ready-made. to tell the full story of how this baby became a toddler, became a child and now a girl, would require an ode, which i fear would bore all but myself. (not to mention the impropriety of posting someone else's tale on the public Intarwebz.) suffice it to say, we've all grown a lot in the last seven years. she's done it in the most recognizable ways, but through those remarkable changes, i mark my own growth and that of all those around her. she's taught me a lot about living, and i stagger at the amount in store.

with all that schmaltz, let me say:

happy birthday, khymi, my firstborn daughter. may every seven years be as full of joy, love, and learning as these past. l'chaim and cead mile failte, küçük hanım.

want vs. need

2008-03-10T11:28:00.004-04:00

A few hours after my last post, I came across this paragraph in an essay by Wendell Berry:

It is plain to me that the line ought to be drawn without fail wherever it can be drawn easily. And it ought to be easy (though many do not find it so) to refuse to buy what one does not need. If you are already solving your problem with the equipment you have—a pencil, say—why solve it with something more expensive and more damaging? If you don’t have a problem, why pay for a solution? If you love the freedom and elegance of simple tools, why encumber yourself with something complicated?

Berry is discussing technology in general--part of his response as to why he refuses to buy a computer (*cough*), but the same might be applied to our technologically-affected food. For some, the line may be drawn at not eating animals at all, affirming that one doesn't need meat to thrive anyway, so why go through something that is morally troubling? I suppose what I meant as a result is that the introduction of another complicated set of products might not really solve anything, either.

What jumped out at me the most was the sentence, "And it ought to be easy (though many do not find it so) to refuse to buy what one does not need." No, many do not find it so easy not to buy things. It actually seems to be really difficult for most people. This article in the Post last week was the first high-profile (albeit unnecessarily snarky) statement that finally brought some attention to the real bottom line: "green consumption" is a contradiction. Maybe we could call it "greener consumption," in the way that some folks prefer to make a distinction between "safe sex" and "safer sex".

My mom has been working for the last few months on the concept of "green fashion," and everyone who's interviewed her is interested, first and foremost, on what to buy. No one wants to hear that we've got a ton of surplus clothes in this country and the "greenest" place to get clothes is the thrift store, a yard sale, or your friend's closet. The "greenest" wedding is the one in which you don't replace all your mismatched (but perfectly functional) dishes, sheets and towels with new, coordinating ones from your registry just because you can. No one wants to hear that it might be a good idea to look for timeless "investment" clothing that will last you for the next twenty years--want it to last longer? Learn to mend clothes instead of throwing them away when they're worn. In many ways, "green fashion" is also an oxymoron, because fashion is, sometimes by its very definition, ever-changing, temporary and disposable.

It will take quite a cultural paradigm shift for people to really only buy what they need. Look around and you'll see we're not even close.

food: where to draw the line?

2008-03-09T13:43:00.007-04:00

I got a little turned around in circles when I read this post (and subsequent comment thread) over at The Good Human, one of the enviro-blogs I like to read (I have a feeling we'll have to start categorizing our blogroll soon, but later for that).

I was a vegetarian (no meat, including fish) for five years, which is kind of a long time considering that's about a fifth of my total time on this planet. The reasons I would give for my decision changed over time: at first, it was because I felt uneasy about eating animals in general, and later, it more because I felt guilty eating an animal I knew I could not bring myself to personally kill if given the chance. During this time, I ate my fair share of meat substitutes, from Boca Burgers to seitan to veggie sausage and bacon to Quorn. I felt much better knowing that no animals died in the process of making this food.

In retrospect, though, I realized that what made me feel strange about being a meat-eater was not necessarily the meat itself, but my significant removal from its production. The mystery of the meat industry was enough to make me think that I was better off just not eating it at all. But after I had thought about it, the contents of those veggie alternatives were just as mysterious. Sure, no dead animals. But what is all that stuff?

Let's take one of my favorites, Morningstar Farms Veggie Sausage Patties. I loved these things. They contain no fewer than 36 ingredients:

TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN (WHEAT GLUTEN, SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE, WATER FOR HYDRATION), EGG WHITES, CORN OIL, SODIUM CASEINATE, MODIFIED TAPIOCA STARCH, CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF LACTOSE, SOYBEAN OIL, HYDROLYZED VEGETABLE PROTEIN (WHEAT GLUTEN, CORN GLUTEN, SOY PROTEIN), AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, SPICES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, SODIUM PHOSPHATES (TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE, TETRAPYROPHOSPHATE, HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE, MONOPHOSPHATE), SALT, DISODIUM INOSINATE, CARAMEL COLOR, CELLULOSE GUM, WHEY POWDER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, MALTODEXTRIN, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, DEXTROSE, ONION POWDER, DISODIUM GUANYLATE, VITAMINS AND MINERALS (NIACINAMIDE, IRON [FERROUS SULFATE], THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE [VITAMIN B6], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], VITAMIN B12), SUCCINIC ACID, ASCORBIC ACID, LACTIC ACID, BREWERS YEAST, TORULA YEAST, SOY LECITHIN.

Does anyone know what most of these things are? I don't. But I'll bet you most of it is made from a) corn or b) soy. Two crops that have taken over America's midwestern landscape on an unbelievable scale. We rode from Charleston, WV to Portland, OR on the train this past summer and those two crops are pretty much all we saw from our window anytime we'd go through a farming area. And when you come right down to it, the oil-based monoculture that keeps the corn industry booming isn't so eco- (or animal-) friendly, either.

Another problem with my time as a vegetarian was that I spent more of my money and my diet on these fake meats than was really necessary. One can technically be a vegetarian and still get by eating very few actual vegetables. Even apart from the processed soy products (which tend to be on the pricey side), as a college student, I could eat pasta or ramen noodles, and even though I wasn't eating meat, I wasn't exactly being healthy. I was consuming artificially cheap, government-subsidized "food" one way or the other. And I sure as hell wasn't supporting small business (guess who owns wacky ol' "alternative" veggie brand Morningstar Farms? Oh, just a little billion-dollar operation by the name of Kellogg).

I guess my point here is that meat is a red herring (as it were). Sure, the meat industry is pretty scary, and not eating meat ensures that you won't be taking part. But avoiding meat doesn't mean you're avoiding the disadvantages of industrialized food. As we all saw in 2006, you can just as easily get E. coli from organic spinach as from ground beef.

Jacob's parents have a subsistence farm in rural West Virginia. Besides a large vegetable garden, berry bushes and fruit trees, they raise chickens for meat and eggs, and my father- and brother-in-law hunt deer in the fall. The chickens live happy lives, eating a combination of feed grain and ground vegetation, and the deer...well, the deer are wild, and that's about as free-range as you can get. With virtually no natural predators, they are prone to overpopulation. As an indirect result, about 15,000 deer are hit by cars every year in West Virginia. Given that, which is better--a rotting deer carcass on the side of the road (that may have also just totaled someone's car), or a source of lean and nutritious meat, wild-roaming from the day it was born, free of antibiotics, pesticides and contaminants?

This doesn't mean I'm enthusiastic about hanging around at their place when butchering is going on. I'm still pretty squeamish about these things. But it does mean I have an appreciation for what goes into that chicken and deer meat, and I have the same appreciation for the small-scale farmers who sell the meat at the farmers' market. It is more expensive, but I am willing to pay them fairly for their work when I can. We consider it a treat in our house. Most days we are just as happy to eat a real vegetarian diet--whole beans, eggs, some tofu, lots of vegetables and whole grains. We're not purists, but we'd like to be at the point where heavily processed food of any kind (meat or veggie) is the exception, not the rule.

futility

2008-03-05T16:27:00.002-05:00

waiting for spring

2008-03-02T18:55:00.002-05:00

i read a book

2008-03-02T17:49:00.007-05:00

I like to start books. I don't like to finish them. It's because I'm not so great at managing time, because I'm not a quick reader, and because a lot of my reading time is usually devoted to textbooks (which take even longer to read than regular ones).

But the other day I finished a book:

Jacob has been dutifully working his way through Michael Pollan's entire catalogue, but all I'd read were some of Pollan's articles for the New York Times. This book is an entertaining read, and it incorporates some of the material from the NYT articles and from Pollan's past books to support his argument that our culture's obsession with nutrition is what is really keeping us from being healthy.

By breaking foods down into nutrients, Pollan says, we value only those tiny and poorly-understood pieces instead of the food itself. It's not yogurt that's good for you; it's calcium. It's not carrots that are good for you, it's beta-carotene. So go ahead and isolate some calcium and some beta-carotene and put it in Gatorade and you'll be fine. Or something. The point, though, is that humans as a species had a generally healthy diet, and their eating habits generally didn't kill them, up until the past century or so when we decided to start messing with food and trying to synthesize it. And there was really nothing wrong with that yogurt or that carrot in the first place.

I've always thought I had a decent diet, but it wasn't until recently that I started paying more attention to what other people eat and what is really available to us as consumers. Most recently I didn't bring enough for lunch one day at school, and I decided to go look in the vending machine. Out of all the edible food-like items in the machine, I found one thing (trail mix) that wasn't mostly processed corn and soy in one form or another. I was pretty surprised that I had never noticed before. This book explains why it is that what's most available is all corn and soy, and why that's not so great.

If you eat, and you live in the United States (or Canada, or any of the countries rapidly assuming our food habits), you might want to check out In Defense of Food.

If you don't have time, you could just watch this interview with Michael Pollan from the CBC show The Hour. It sums up the general message pretty well.

dirt farmin'

2008-02-23T21:24:00.005-05:00

Last weekend, I was again consumed with berserker fury against the forces of Backyard Bamboo Evil. I know you have little basis for comparison, but trust me when I say that the below pic would have shown an obscure screen of green before then.

M sez: Look, a house! Wow!

That's the view straight back from the house. At the left-hand corner is what was once a garden plot, but has long since been overgrown with you-know-what, of course.

Unlike every other patch of overgrowth, though, a bit of scraping revealed this one to be covering a cauldron of black gold!

Teh Dirt Hole.

Black gold meaning here not coal, but its much, much, much younger cousin: loose, airy, cakey, rich, loamy topsoil.

Either the spot was a former compost heap (I found peach pits, a straw, and oval fruit stickers), or it just built up lots of humus from years of bamboo leaves, or more likely both (bamboo leaves take a long time to break down). Anyway, I stripmined it as best I could with a shovel and paint bucket and hauled it over to the garden bed. After a few trips, I had 6" deep of perfect, organic, and unbeatably local topsoil for FREE. (We had just bought two 40-lb. bags of "organic" topsoil, supposedly from WV, for $2.49 each. They barely covered the 32-square-foot bed.)

See, the bamboo is good for something! At least for separating plant rows. With topsoil down, 36 spinach seeds were in their new homes in a matter of minutes!

Also, we planted lettuce in yet another type of repurposed planter:

Now with extra Omega-3s!

In 1 week, 18 of 24 little pellets have turned into cheery green stalks!

Even when I'm stuck indoors, doing French homework on a rainy day, the natural world won't leave me alone. I leave you with our new pal, happily lunching in the damp.

M Cardinal sez: J'ai peut-être froid, mais je n'ai plus faim!

an impulse buy you can live with

2008-02-23T20:57:00.006-05:00

The day is finally upon us: IKEA ("We Promoted Compact Fluorescents Before They Were Cool") now sells rechargeable batteries.

They're not even on the IKEA website yet, but they are called LADDA ("charge") and they look like the yellow alkaline ones, except they're (of course) green.

We hardly ever use batteries (so many things have chargers these days, and we now have a hand-cranked flashlight), but for the few instances in which we do, I decided to finally take this opportunity to make the switch. A pack that includes a charging unit, two AAAs and four AAs cost me $18. Not bad for never having to throw any away.

I felt so cutting-edge when I mentioned this to my dad and he hadn't noticed them in the store yet. He likes to keep everyone up on the latest IKEA developments. Well, you heard it here first!

more trash reduction: shampoo

2008-02-13T22:01:00.007-05:00

In the aisles of my local bourgeois hippie food store, something seemingly out-of-place had been catching my eye amongst the shelves of natural and organic hair care products:

Shampoo in a bar? Wow, I thought. More power to the people who can use that, but they must be serious hippies.

Recently, though, we've been learning about the virtues of food with fewer ingredients (last night found us reading in bed, each with a different book by Michael Pollan), so I thought, why not bath and body products with fewer ingredients? I'm trying not to get caught up in the throng of paranoid young parents spurning everything ever made by Johnson & Johnson, but on other hand, it really couldn't hurt to cut down on the things I can't pronounce.

We've also really enjoyed buying food in bulk since we moved to a place where we can do so. I don't mean that we buy a ton of something at once; the store does, and we buy as much or as little as we need. It means we've stopped throwing out or recycling as many containers, because now we can bring a bottle or a jar or a bag from home and get sugar, flour, cereal, peanut butter, dry beans, honey, molasses or olive oil. So it's no surprise that I found myself looking at the almost-empty bottle of shampoo recently and wishing I could bring it back for a refill. No such luck this time.

Wait a minute, I thought. Maybe we are serious hippies. Maybe we should buy the hippie bar shampoo.

Hippie or no, we took the leap. Tossed the biodegradable wrapper in the recycling and gave it a go. You know what? It's just like any other shampoo. It's just in a bar. It's got five ingredients and it rates a 1 ("low hazard") in Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep cosmetics database.

My main concern had been that I have dry hair, and I was afraid this would dry out my hair the way soap sometimes dries out my skin. But so far, so good. I wash my hair every other day, and I haven't even needed to use conditioner.

J.R. Liggett's sells a "patented shampoo shelf" for twelve bucks on their website, but we've found that this works just as well.

Conclusion: regular people can use bar shampoo. It is possible. You might want to think about it the next time you're about to buy another plastic bottle.

the tougher the bamboo, the sweeter the victory!

2008-02-10T23:27:00.001-05:00

When we moved into the Small Red House back in July, we quickly learned that there were two types of bamboo. The nice type is called "clumping bamboo", because it grows in neat, orderly clumps, right where you wanted it. And then there's "running bamboo", which sends out tendrils underground that push up new shoots wherever they can. Naturally, that's the kind we inherited all over the yard.

As you can see, the bamboo had conquered the property. One couldn't see the street or the neighbors', and it was no accident that the patch in the picture above became a home for empty liquor bottles and fussing, defecating sparrows. A tenant's desire for privacy is understandable, I'll allow, but the bamboo had taken that inch and grabbed a mile. The Potomac-Anacostia basin may be a swamp, but we'd be damned if we let it remain a jungle.

Among the lessons of the past half-year has come intimate, inexplicable knowledge of the ways of running bamboo and its sworn enemies, the lopping shears and the mattock. Lopping shears can fell and trim, but only the mattock can rend greedy roots from the ground they have colonized.

So vast was the task that I found ways to break it into manageable chunks. First came the clearing of one garden bed in front of the house. (See before and after.) Then came the legitimate distractions: I'd be out with the mattock anyway, breaking clods within the garden frame, and I'd inevitably find myself in the corner of the backyard yanking up long yellow tentacles. The backyard still bears the brown, rutty scars of those battles.

Fast forward to this weekend. With spring on the horizon and a newfound consciousness as gardeners, we have become all too aware of our plot's disadvantageous lay: it slopes northward, it extends east-to-west, with the house shading one side or the other half the day, and the uphill neighbors' house blots out a good chunk of our southern exposure. Perhaps the only thing we can do to improve our latent garden's sunny chances, we realized, was to strip away the 8'-10' walls of bamboo that lined the southern, uphill fence. Somehow, without prior discussion, we tacitly agreed that yesterday was the appointed day. Maybe it was the 60-degree, mosquito-free weather. Maybe it was the homework that faced us inside. Whatever it was, the bamboo had to die.

After a couple hours, I had cleared the front fenceline and went to the back to thin the 20'-30' stalks around the swingset. Maria fetched some shears and trimmers from her folks' and hacked down the clump by the sidewalk (at which I had made a small dent over the preceding months). By sundown, our yard had doubled and our street opened its arms to our view.

My zeal was waning around the swingset, so I contented myself with clearing some holes to let the sun through and to give Khymi some more space to play. (Click here to compare.)

Besides the original bamboo-cum-leaf pile, the backyard now sported two new bamboo piles. One for the shorter ones from the front...

...and one for the giants in back.

(For scale, note that the garden bed is 4' x 8'!)

Anyone know a hungry panda?
Barring that, maybe we'll make some windchimes.

Mind you, we're under no illusions. Unless we pour Roundup (per Annie) or Essig-Essenz (per Jon Singer) down the stems, the roots will send up plenty new shoots in the spring. Perhaps this was the inspiration for the tale of Cadmus and the soldiers who sprang up from the ground. I suppose the modern analogue is the touting of bamboo as "renewable". But what's a renewable resource in one place is a doggone weed elsewhere. Whatever. We'll be ready for 'em!

little green babies...

2008-02-10T23:06:00.001-05:00

Maria tells me I am a bad brother. Last weekend, while calling my brother, I noticed that the first tomato seed-leaves were poking up out of the planter. Like any first-time gardener, I couldn't contain my amazement and started shrieking about how we were having a baby! This naturally amazed and befuddled my poor brother, which amazement and befuddlement quickly turned to irritation when he realized I was talking about tomatoes. Apparently nightshades don't exactly put one in an avuncular state of mind.

But I've already gotten ahead of myself.

I've read and been told that first-time gardeners tend toward overeagerness: they plant too early, thin too little, water too much. Even with this warning, and for all our almanac-checking and calendar-comparing, we probably started our tomatoes and peppers too early. Ah well. What can I say: we wanted to stop reading and start planting already!

In order to save money and pursue the reduce-and-reuse-before-recycling ethic, we had some fun making our own planters out of toilet paper tubes. (The VERY VERY EASY process is documented on YouGrowGirl.com.) To spur germination, we made the seeds a greenhouse out of a translucent plastic bin we had lying around, which we covered with a translucent piece of plastic we cut from a bag. We sprayed in a little moisture and set it on a radiator in a window, et voilà! the first tomato sprouts popped out in three days' time! So that the shoots wouldn't rot in the moisture, we moved the sprouted planters one by one off the radiator, into mini-greenhouses we made out of plastic milk jugs.

After two weeks, 3/4 of the tomato seeds sprouted - nine in all. Of the nine fish pepper seeds we planted, four have sprouted so far. We're still waiting on another trio of fish peppers and one of bell peppers.

Care for a tour?

The sprouting greenhouse:

The post-sprouting greenhouses:

Tomato seedlings in their tubes, in a milk jug greenhouse:

A fish pepper seedling in its own mini-greenhouse/planter:

they can read!

2008-01-28T12:20:00.001-05:00

I have a weird relationship with reading. From what I can tell, I started reading at an abnormally early age, and I don't remember when I couldn't read. My mom likes to tell the story of how, at age four, I was caught not paying attention during "cooking time" in preschool and the teacher asked me to repeat the step of the recipe that had just been explained. I glanced at the big pad of paper where the recipe was written, and read the answer aloud. Then I audibly whispered to my friend, "See? When you know how to read, you don't have to listen to the teacher!"

In elementary school I was ahead of most of my classmates in the subject. Although I am quite literate, and have what I guess is an above-average vocabulary, I now have significant trouble reading for school or for pleasure. My problems have more to do with ability to focus than with actual literacy. And I miss being the kid who loved to read.

Even so, it's easy to take for granted the more practical uses for reading. Restaurant menus, road signs, instructions, song lyrics...when I worked at an adult literacy program, I learned how challenging everyday life can be when you can't read. So I was so excited this weekend to see Khymi and Big Girl Monster reading Frog and Toad are Friends aloud to each other. I feel like they are on the edge of something big, and I'm so glad Khymi has a friend who can experience this with her.

It's always nice to be read to; even long after I could read fluently, I enjoyed hearing a bedtime story. But being able to read to yourself opens up so many possibilities. Reading saved me from abject boredom on numerous long family car trips; Khymi regularly spends a lot of time in the car between here and Mama's, and I think she'll be so happy to have another option available to keep herself occupied, without having to depend on an adult to read to her. It is a huge step towards independence. I am thrilled for her.

in which the locavore discovers one of his roots

2008-01-19T22:35:00.001-05:00

After an afternoon of grubbing bamboo out of the 1'x5' bed in front of the house, I ran to the local co-op for some staples. As a reward for winning an argument with myself over which greens were best ($1 red cabbage beat wimpy-looking kale), I decided to take a chance on a bagful of parsnips. They're local and seasonal, I told myself, climate-appropriate, and new and exciting.

Oh man. I had no idea just how exciting. If you must know, they were this exciting:

OMG EVERYBODY RIGHT NOW GO GET YOU SOME PARSNIPS!!!
YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!!!!!!

If you're like me and have never had parsnips before, they're like a cross between a carrot and a potato. They're starchy like potatoes, but sweet and carrot-looking. (According to the genius box, Romans used the same word for them as for carrots.) I'd say they're sweeter than carrots, though. They're like tuber candy!

We took a recipe from Edible Chesapeake, combined it with some improvised fried collards, and got a sort of all-local cousin of colcannon. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS WE COULD NOT STOP EATING IT.

(See our recipe by clicking on "Full Post" below.)

Chesapeake "Colcannon" (J & M '08)

2 lb parsnips, peeled & cut into ~1"-thick rounds
1/2 lb potatoes (about 2 medium), cut into ~1"-thick rounds
4 Tbs butter
1/2 cup milk, or enough to make a smooth creamy mash
~2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 big handfuls collard or other greens
1-2 shakes garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves fresh garlic) (optional)
Liquid Smoke (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Place parsnips and potatoes in a large pot, cover with lightly salted water. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer. Cook until just tender, about 10-15 minutes.

While root veggies are cooking, heat olive oil in another pot. Sauté onions until golden. Add collards with a little bit of water, just enough to coat the bottom. Sauté until collards are dark green and have cooked down, tossing in some garlic powder and a dash of liquid smoke.

Drain parsnips and potatoes in a colander (you can save the water to thicken soups). Return to the pot, place over high heat until excess moisture evaporates (~1 minute). Add butter to the root veggies. Use potato masher to make smooth mixture. Continue mashing while adding milk. Stir in greens. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

new on the blogroll

2008-01-16T12:23:00.002-05:00

Eurobabble: Our friend Annie documents her semester in Berlin. Jacob looks on in vicarious glee.

Erin's Easy Eats: My high school classmate Erin draws inspiration from The Pioneer Woman to come up with simple, tasty dishes for her and her husband.

nice white lady hits the small screen

2008-01-15T23:51:00.001-05:00

As promised, here's the link to tonight's news segment on the DC-area CBS station:

Eco-Fashion Folks Ask 'What's In Your Underwear?'

It's a local news story, so there's not much substance, but if you really want to know more about sustainable fashion, head over to Nice White Lady for the lowdown.

food raving on the internets

2008-01-15T18:50:00.001-05:00

Not to turn this into maria.com or anything, but thanks to my friend Carla in San Francisco, I've discovered Yelp, a user-powered review website for restaurants, stores and services. Apparently Yelp is a big thing in SF (where all good internet trends are born), but it's got a decent following here in DC too.

I've added their tacky badge to our blog (over on the sidebar; scroll down), at least until Jacob, with his disdain for animated website doohickeys, comes home and brings this madness to a stop.

Do you love food? Do you enjoy giving people the impression that you can afford to eat at restaurants? Be my friend on Yelp!

P.S. Guess what! My mom was on the 5 o'clock news tonight, and it was not because she did anything illegal. Stay tuned for a link...

news from the land of the non-flu

2008-01-14T14:28:00.002-05:00

I have been sick for the last week, and according to my doctor, it looked like the flu and walked like the flu but was not the flu. I barely ate anything all week and pretty much stayed in bed with a fever. When I could eat, it was the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast). It was mostly Not Fun.

I had lots of time to read Wikipedia, catch up on the blogs and do a lot of napping. I also spent some time contemplating why many intelligent grown people cannot use proper punctuation to distinguish between contractions and possessives ("you're" vs. "your", "it's" vs. "its") or between plurals and possessives ("cats" vs. "cat's"). This first started off as indignant and self-righteous, but quickly progressed beyond the judgmental to the illness-induced philosophical. Maybe it's unnatural. Maybe there's just something wrong with me! You can take the girl out of the egghead linguistics department...

Well, it only took a week, but it looks like I survived the non-flu. I'm mostly better, apart from some lingering weirdness in the kishkes and an occasional coughing fit.

Yesterday I even ate three regular meals, including pizza and spicy food. I even had the energy to cook dinner last night (trying to make up for last week, when Jacob would arrive home at 7 PM and I'd have to say, "Sorry I didn't get dinner started; I had to open a bottle of juice earlier today and then I had to go lie down. No, I'm not hungry"). We had hot and sour sweet potato curry, brown rice and baby collards (local potatoes + greens!). No issues except it was probably too soon for me to be drinking a entire glass of milk. So far, so good.

An inadvertent side-effect of the non-flu was that I had to stop drinking coffee. I had been nursing a small but unmistakable addiction--just one cup a day, but woe betide me if I didn't have that one cup. When I got sick, I lost my appetite for everything, including coffee, and the withdrawal symptoms were unnoticeable amidst the general malaise. Today is the first day I would have even considered coffee, but when I got up I made myself some nice darjeeling tea instead. I don't really even miss it. Yet.

Another side note: I was on a quest for organic, HFCS-free Saltine-like crackers once I started feeling a little better. I was happy to find Suzie's 100% Organic Crackers at our local co-op, but dismayed once I opened the package to find twelve individually-wrapped servings. Why? Why??? If I want a portable individual serving of crackers, I can put eight crackers in a reusable container myself. Moreover, this is not a magical power that only I possess. Maybe they're concerned with the crackers going stale? In that case, there's got to be a better way.

In other news, we ventured out to the farmers' market in the cold yesterday, and then to the library to continue our mission of building a fort out of gardening books. I mean, checking out gardening books, ostensibly to somehow apply the information inside them to our yard.

This will be our first spring here, and we're trying not to bite off more than we can chew. It's not like we are going to be able to grow everything we like to eat. We sat down and made "Top 5" wish lists of vegetables, and figured out how many of each thing we'll be able to maintain. But we know it'll be mostly trial-and-error. Luckily, we are also going halvesies with my parents on a CSA share from Avian Mead Organics this season, so between that, the garden and the farmers' market, we should be able to have all the produce we need.

In other other news, I am supposed to be catching up on work now that I'm feeling better, so naturally my computer speakers won't turn on (part of what I do involves listening to interview audio). It's always something.

it's official now...

2008-01-03T15:42:00.001-05:00

...which means this is the last time y'all're gonna have to hear about it, but here goes: today was swearing in, so now I really and truly am a lawyer. whatever shall I do with all my newly bestowed power? I guess just the same sort of government counsel-ing I'd been doing anyway, just without the obligatory disclaimers about direct supervision by a licensed member of the Maryland bar &c. &c. (wink, nudge), as if I wouldn't be under direct supervision at this fledgling stage anyway.

to the Maryland State Board of Law Examiners, what I would like to know is this: why do you make us get up at butt o'clock and drive to Annapolis on a frigid day for just a few minutes of recitation and signature? just because some of us couldn't be bothered to attend the all-afternoon pomp-and-circumstance affair full of all the same pseudo-graduation speeches we've heard already (noble profession, blah blah, fight for rights, blah blah, ethics, blah blah, here we go gathering nuts and may)? I guess it's a small price to pay, considering I was much happier skipping all that and going to khymi's christmas musical down in charlottesville.

and hey, some of us were given a whole day of administrative leave for the swearing-in, so I guess I shouldn't complain. anyway, this was the scene at 10:15am today:

the late aughties?

2008-01-02T16:06:00.001-05:00

I had some time to think about the last year, driving home today from bringing Khymi to meet her mom. The holidays are over and she'll be there for another month or so. I looked around and really noticed the bare trees and brown grass, and thought about where I began 2007. My friend and bandmate Jim died a year ago, and sometimes I feel like it still hasn't really hit us--I look around the room at a rehearsal, and even though we're a big group, I think, is this it? It was a strange way to begin the year. What a year it was.

In 2007, I finished my AmeriCorps year, went back to college, started an internship, moved out of Baltimore, got married and officially became a stepmom. Jacob started and finished a spring internship, found a job, graduated from law school, moved in with me, studied for the bar exam, moved here, took the bar, got married, started a new job and passed the bar.

This might sound weird, but I'm hoping for an uneventful 2008.

Every year for at least the past five years, I've experienced a move, a change in relationship status, a change in occupation, or some combination of the three. Sometimes there were all three, sometimes there were multiple occurrences within a year. Not that I didn't enjoy my early twenties, but I'm finally looking forward to a year in which not one of those things is likely to happen.

Less upheaval. More stability. More baking, more movie nights, more music. More friends, more family, more working, more reading. More small-scale travel, more gardening, more neighborhood bike tourism. More walks for no reason. More celebrating friends' weddings and new babies (none for me, thanks--I'm good on life changes for now).

I guess 2008 might not be so uneventful after all, but with any luck, it'll be the right kind of uneventful. Oh, and there's going to be that whole election business. But that's part of everyone's life, not just mine. I hope we handle it well.

Happy 2008 to you and yours. I hope it's a good one for you.

what christmas can mean

2007-12-24T12:17:00.001-05:00

For so the children come
And so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they come--
Born of the seed of man and woman.
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses
No wise men see a star to show
where the babe is that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers--sitting beside their children's cribs--
feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.
They ask, "Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?"
Each night a child is born is a holy night--
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping.
-Sophia Lyon Fahs (1876 - 1978)

I often wonder how many people in our country celebrate Christmas and don't even think about why. In this land of predominant Christianity, it's tradition, I suppose. But very few people I knew growing up affirmatively believed in the divinity of Christ. They just weren't Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu...they fell into the vague "other" category of those who are descended from Christians, but stopped practicing Christianity for one reason or another along the way. And yet just about everyone celebrates Christmas who doesn't have an obvious reason not to. Everyone goes out and drags home a tree, makes cookies, gives presents, learns the carols. Because it's what they did when they were young, and what their parents did, too.

I can sort of include myself in with those folks. I don't believe in the divinity of Christ, my parents are no longer Christians, and yet every year we celebrate.

(continue reading by clicking "full post")

Like many Unitarian Universalists, I think I've had a somewhat awkward relationship with Christianity. It's the recurring conflict of a syncretic religion that wishes to draw upon the good values while at the same time remembering the reason we're somehow different.

I have vivid memories of a friend on the playground in elementary school, who came to us, her group of closest friends, in a panic one day. She had learned in Sunday school that only those who had accepted Christ into their hearts as their Savior would go to heaven, and that those who didn't would be condemned to eternal suffering. The other four of us were a UU, two Jews and a girl in the secular "other" category. Our friend was freaking out and told us we'd have to start reading the Bible and becoming Christians or else she'd go to heaven and we wouldn't. I was about six or seven years old.

As I grew up, I began to explore my religious identity, declaring that I was an atheist at my Coming of Age ceremony when I was 13 (much to my Episcopalian grandmother's shock and disappointment), then experimenting with earth-based religion in high school. Every year at Christmas I'd wonder what it was we were doing anyway. Was it just for a lack of something better? I felt fine putting up a wreath after I learned that the circle can symbolize the return of the sun on the Winter Solstice. But I couldn't deny that Christmas is about Christ (oh, and Santa Claus). At best, I can believe that Christ was a leader, a teacher and a healer--the parts about being a prophet and a martyr and the son of God...well, to me it just never added up.

Around the same time as the playground crisis of faith, a local production of Menotti's television opera Amahl and the Night Visitors came to my school. Something about the story captivated me--the music, the characters, the lyrics, something else. Santa Claus (being omniscient, of course) brought me a cassette of the soundtrack in my stocking that year and I listened to it over and over.

Amahl is about a boy of about ten and his mother living near Bethlehem at the time of the nativity. The mother is a young widow; Amahl walks with a crutch. They are extremely poor. The night visitors are the legendary three kings, following the star on their journey to the child who will be the new Savior. In the times that I've listened to the soundtrack (which I now have on CD) more recently, the part I still find the most moving is a responsive "duet" between Amahl's mother and the three kings wherein they ask if she has seen the child they seek, a child of poor yet somehow noble birth, to whom they are bringing offerings of great riches. She responds,

"Yes, I know a child the color of wheat, the color of dawn.
His eyes are mild, his hands are those of a king, as king he was born.
But no one will bring him incense or gold,
though sick and poor and hungry and cold.
He’s my child, my son, my darling, my own."

"The child we seek holds the seas and the winds on his palm. The child we seek has the moon and the sun at his feet."

"The child I know on his palm holds my heart. The child I know at his feet has my life. He’s my child, my son, my darling, my own, and his name is Amahl."

For some reason, this always brings tears to my eyes. This mother, like all parents, can only believe that her child is the one, just as deserving of praise and prosperity.

In the end, Amahl offers his crutch as a gift for the baby, and he is miraculously healed and able to walk again. I never liked that ending. Well-intentioned as it may have been, it always seemed like another lesson of sacrifice in the name of God.

After all of this, what sense can I possibly make of Christmas? Here is what I have been able to figure out:

Christmas is a time for me to reflect on the best teachings of Christianity, not those of martyrdom and sacrifice, not those of the saved and the unsaved, but those of genuine love for all humankind. In terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Peace on earth and good will toward men.

It's a time to honor and appreciate those we love the most, and those we barely know. It's a time to give to the potential of all to do good. It's a time of hope.

I imagine the hope the people in the nativity story must have felt at the birth of the child they considered their Savior, the one who would change this world for the better. I feel that hope when I look into the face of my stepdaughter, my best friend, every one of my fellow humans. Most importantly, I must feel that hope when I look in the mirror. No one person, divine or mortal, can be looked to as a redeemer. But we can each do our part. We are all capable of great love and great change in our time on this Earth.

Peace on Earth, Joy to the World. Merry Christmas.

you know...

2007-12-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

You know you put together too much IKEA furniture when you're doing laundry and you keep finding Allen wrenches and wooden dowels in the pants pockets.

the deal with gamelan

2007-12-11T11:26:00.001-05:00

Long ago, in a town uncomfortably close to here, I was in my third year at the University of Maryland. I was a member of the Maryland Chorus, but I had decided, for pretty much no reason, to join one of the university's non-western ensembles. They offered West African drumming (always full), Japanese koto, and Balinese gamelan. I chose the one I had heard the least about. I couldn't have found Bali on a map if you had asked me, and I don't think I knew that it was part of Indonesia. I also thought a gamelan was an instrument. I found out that it's the name for the whole percussion orchestra, the set of instruments or the people who play them.

I started out playing one of the biggest, lowest, instruments there was, called jegogan. It's a huge metallophone that comes up to a person's waist, with five heavy bronze keys, and a large, heavy padded mallet. Its function is sort of like a bass instrument in a western ensemble. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. As a soprano and violinist, I had spent a lot of time on the treble end of things. And this kind of music was totally new.

Around this time in the semester, our teacher told me and the other girl playing jegogan (there are two of almost everything in Balinese gamelan) that he needed people to play that same instrument with his independent DC-area group, Gamelan Mitra Kusuma. I started coming to rehearsals and I've never looked back. Even during the time I lived in Baltimore, I'd drive an hour each way to weekly rehearsals. And I've moved on to more difficult instruments.

A year after I first signed up for the gamelan class, at a small liberal arts college in Ohio, Jacob was starting his senior year. The college had just hired an ethnomusicology professor and procured a set of gamelan degung instruments from Sunda, or West Java, another Indonesian province. Jacob was in the gamelan for his last two semesters in college, and the next year, he moved to DC.

Jacob had really enjoyed playing gamelan in college, so once he was settled in DC, he looked around for a group to join. There was Gamelan Mitra Kusuma, the Balinese gong kebyar ensemble I had then been a part of for about two years, and there was the Central Javanese gamelan at the Indonesian embassy. Neither group's music was like the Sundanese gamelan Jacob had played in college, but he chose the group at the embassy because of their proximity to the Metro and to his apartment. For the next couple of years, Jacob learned about Javanese gamelan and dance, and started taking Indonesian language classes, and I continued to play Balinese gamelan, and never the twain did meet.

A little over a couple years ago, at a local DC Irish festival, I met an Irish music enthusiast about my age. When I introduced him to my gamelan instructors who had come to hear my Irish band play, he enthusiastically exclaimed, "Apa kabar?!"

The rest, as they say...

Maria playing with "Jacob's gamelan," the Central Javanese gamelan of the Embassy of Indonesia (Jacob is hidden behind the gongs). Melissa and Totok are performing a traditional Javanese social dance.

This fall, Jacob decided to try his hand at playing Balinese gamelan, which he describes as "loud and insane." I think he's doing pretty well. For the past couple of months, we've had special guest teachers visiting from Bali, teaching us as well as teaching dance and gamelan classes at the embassy.

This Friday evening we've got a big concert at the embassy with lots of dancers, music and light refreshments. If you'll be in the DC area and we haven't pestered you about this yet, send me an e-mail (maria AT dcgamelan DOT com) and I'll send you the invitation. It's free, but it's RSVP-only. As of last night there are still seats. The embassy is a great place to visit just to see the building.

Visit the link on the right to learn more about Balinese gamelan and our ensemble. We'd love to see you there!

P.S. Check out this video of GMK performing with dancers from Indonesian Performing Arts Chicago last year. The montage includes "Panyembrama" (a women's welcome dance), "Cendrawasih" (the bird-of-paradise dance, done beautifully here by sisters Mirah and Chika), and a crazy instrumental piece called "Jaya Semara."

small white tooff

2007-12-09T15:55:00.001-05:00

Precious and dear are the milestones of youth: haircuts, reading, losing teeth, and so forth. If you're a noncustodial parent, you kind of get used to downplaying all the stuff you miss because the little time you spend together is precious in itself. But once in a while, you do get to be there for one of those milestones, and you can't help but feel a pang of sentimentalism, nostalgia, tradition, poignancy...

So anyway, after months of wiggling this one and twirling that, Khymi lost a completely unexpected tooth on a piece of cucumber. It was a Chanukah miracle! She's looking forward to being a jack-o'-lantern next Hallowe'en.

Although this was her third tooth, it was the Tooth Fairy's first visit to the Small Red House. And because tiny incisors are in high demand right now in the Tooth Fairy Aerie (or so Dad theorized the next morning), the ol' Fairy left a golden envelope with a shiny quarter and two sets of butterfly stickers. After the familiar rustling and gasping that warmed the hearts of the bleary-eyed, reminiscing grown-ups in the next room, Khymi came running in to show off the envelope. It MUST have been the Tooth Fairy, she declared, because the envelope was sealed with a butterfly sticker!

She also decided that the Tooth Fairy lives in Baltimore. You see, back when Maria was living in Baltimore, we would drive past a sign for a dentist's office that was shaped like a big white tooth. This sign fascinated Khymi because she could tell it was a dentist even though she couldn't read it yet. But as she's become more aware the Tooth Fairy's existence, what more logical place for the Tooth Fairy to live than where there's a big tooth sign?

Maybe next time the Tooth Fairy visits, we'll sniff the quarter to see if it smells like Old Bay.

white chanukah

2007-12-05T11:40:00.001-05:00

We lit the Chanukah lights together last night for the third year running. This morning was the first snow of the season.

Hope your holidays are full of light, love and surprises.

another great used clothing resource!

2007-11-30T12:38:00.001-05:00

Swango is a new clothes swapping site based on a system of credits. I'll be trying it out the next time I want to do a clothes purge. Anything I don't think would belong on there will go to the thrift store or the Baltimore Free Store.

apropos of nothing

2007-11-29T11:52:00.002-05:00

And because I am still feeling a little stressed out...

This is Sharon Jones, Soul Sister #1. She will rock your world.

As Sharon would say, "If you can't feel the music...then you must be a dead ass!"

feelgood holiday shopping

2007-11-28T23:44:00.001-05:00

Almost December.

I am taking a break from freaking out about the impending end of the semester to indulge in some holiday consumerism.

Okay, so not quite. The stupid conscience is at it again. True, on this year's "Buy Nothing Day" (i.e. Black Friday) I was at my in-laws' in West Virginia, several ridges away from anywhere one could possibly hope to buy anything. But I often have Buy Nothing Day here at home. It's pretty easy when you don't have a whole lot of disposable income.

Still, the holidays are upon us. Somehow Chanukah is next week already. And I admit it, I actually do like holiday shopping. I've even been to the mall on Christmas Eve Day on several occasions for last-minute gifts, and I haven't killed anyone. But these days I figure, if I'm going to buy a bunch of stuff, maybe I should know where some of it is made, or at least feel like I'm giving something beyond the scope of my friends and relations.

Here are a couple of my suggestions for gifts you can feel good about buying:

Check out Etsy for handmade gifts from people like my friend Xiane. If you don't have any friends who are vendors, try using the Geolocator feature to find out who's near you.

If you live in Baltimore, stop by the Woman's Industrial Exchange for gifts made by local consignors.

Another Baltimore opportunity (sorry, my brain still kind of lives there): the Greater Homewood Adult Literacy and ESOL Program, where spent a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer, is having a great fundraising event at the Barnes & Noble in Charles Village this Saturday. Buy books you would have bought anyway and support a great cause!

Look around your own neighborhood for holiday craft sales. There are at least two around here this weekend.

And, of course, Craigslist. And for that matter, eBay, the thrift store, the flea market. You have to be a little discerning, but know what they say about one man's trash? You buy (or get for free) something for your loved ones. Someone else gets rid of it. It's a win-win. Last year I drove out to Owings Mills and picked up a big ridiculous stuffed dolphin from a couple who had absolutely no use for it and wanted it out of their house. It ended up being a certain five-year-old's favorite Chanukah gift, and remains camped out as the only stuffed animal in her bed to this day. It doesn't matter to her what I paid (or in this case, didn't pay) for it.

Making your own gifts never goes out of style!

What are your suggestions for a reduced-guilt holiday?

love on two wheels

2007-11-09T16:31:00.001-05:00

With the price of oil at $96 a barrel, I've been thinking now might be as good a time as any to make a serious effort to cut back on the driving. Since the spring, I've been keeping my brother's bike around, but I have to admit I haven't really been using it. It's a big-box mountain bike and I find it a little hard to ride in any useful capacity.

On top of that, the neighborhood food co-op is only a few blocks away. Walking there is easy...walking back with the groceries, not as easy. But I feel like such a tool every time I drive there.

I knew what I wanted. A basic, all-purpose bike for getting around. Not too cheaply manufactured, but not an expensive newfangled city bike with lots of bells and whistles. Well, actually, a bell might be good. But anyway, what I wanted was a simple and tough vehicle like the ones people use in cities with lots of bike traffic (e.g. cities in China and some parts of Europe). Fenders to keep the mud off, a chain guard to keep my pants leg from getting caught. For me, it's not a sport; it's a way to get from one place to another wearing normal clothes without burning up some more fossil fuels.

The better bike manufacturers all have some sort of "city" or "commuter" model available. And I'm sure they're great if you have a few hundred dollars or more to throw around. Trek recently unveiled the iMac of bikes, an automatic shift machine called the Lime. I have to confess that I think these are really cute, and they've sort of got the right idea with their "everyone can ride!" ad campaign. And the idea of automatic shift (powered by an on-board generator) is pretty neat. But oh, the sticker shock once again! Guess not everyone can ride.

You knew where this was going...Craigslist to the rescue! Today I took the bus and the Metro down to Alexandria during off-peak hours and picked up a 70s-era steel-frame Schwinn Collegiate. Not the fanciest, not all-terrain for sure, but it's got fenders, a chain guard, and a kickstand. I rode it home from the Metro in a chilly drizzle and I wasn't miserable. And it's my favorite color!

Pictures forthcoming on a prettier day. I've got some big basket panniers to attach, too. Perfect for all those groceries.

mmrow?

2007-11-04T19:58:00.001-05:00

it's as if this cartoonist snuck into our house, slept in our bed for a night when we were out, and made a cartoon about our cat. seriously. kneading the face and everything. it's uncanny. so uncanny that maria pretty much laughed until she cried.

so this guy walks into the bar...

2007-11-02T18:43:00.001-04:00

If there is one professional violation that the guild of American lawyerdom cannot stand, it is UPL: Unlicensed Practice of Law. Translation: You've got to get bar certification (a very expensive and exhausting process!) if you're going to hold yourself out as qualified to give reliable legal advice or to represent someone in court. Bar authorities like to think of this as a quality control measure, a handful of cynics might call it protectionism. They can fight it out if they want.

Regardless, my fresh memories of professional responsibility class and bar lectures gave me ample cause for UPL worries when I saw the sign below next to my office door. I was proud and thrilled, sure, but I wasn't about to post it on some ol' blog for all the world -- potential clients and bar examiners alike -- to see.

UNTIL NOW.

Yes, that means I passed!

Halloween's SUPER, thanks for asking...

2007-10-31T22:24:00.001-04:00

The hordes of urbancentrists might not believe it, but it is possible to have a First Real Halloween at age 26. The handing-out of candy - or, as explained previously, plastic nasties and raisins - the adorable costumed kids, the smiles and polite "Thank you"s and "Happy Halloween"s, even the glittery teens... it's all something you read about or watch on TV as a child in rural WV. I guess it's like the Rose Bowl or something. When there are four families on your 1-mile dirt road, you don't exactly beat the gravel for candy. And yes, this means that there's not much point in dressing up (except for the time I was Robin Hood at the fourth grade class pageant, but who's counting). Whoever thought it was a suburban holiday, but there you have it.

Which means that when I came home to find my lovely wife dressed as a superheroine, I was only too glad to hear that she'd gotten an extra red cape...

We hate to be Those Cat People, really, but our red cloth napkins just fit the occasion so well. Every super-pair needs a pet sidekick, right?

OMG I R SO MADD RITE NAO I SHOOTZ TEH DETH RAYZ AT YOU

Of course, it didn't occur to me until later that when Khymi sees these pictures, she will jump for joy at our unwitting compliance with her plans for us to be Unit and Polar-Boy. Ah well. Whatever works for her.

In other news, Maria found us a real, working piano for $5 on CraigsList. Can't beat it!

Healthy Halloween?

2007-10-19T11:59:00.002-04:00

Note: Non-registered users can now post comments. Sorry that we didn't notice and change the settings earlier. Anyone who's not a spammer is welcome!

As I was writing my long novel of a comment on Mama Monster's Halloween post, I began thinking a better place to write about Halloween would be here. She pretty much nailed my sentiments about costumes. Although Khymi won't be here for Halloween (she's making a "butterfly-moth" costume at her mom's house), I'm going to put together a Halloween costume for myself (because I am a kid at heart, or actually, still a kid from many people's perspectives). I am going to be a superhero. Hopefully this will serve to entertain the hordes of trick-or-treaters that will descend upon our doorstep. But I still need something to give them...

Every time I go to a chain drugstore or grocery store these days, I see big discounts on those huge bags of fun-size candy bars. I feel a little conflicted about buying them without a second thought. Don't get me wrong: I actually love junk candy on an individual basis. Three Musketeers, Milky Way, Mounds bars, Butterfinger, Reese's peanut butter cups...bring it on. But my buying habits have changed a lot, if gradually, in the past few years. I don't drink soda anymore, not even in a restaurant or sandwich shop where I could at least justify it by saying, "it's just this once." I hardly ever buy anything at the grocery store that contains corn syrup as a sweetener. It's difficult sometimes, because it's usually that stuff that's the cheapest (see: corn subsidies). So I'm having trouble just casting all that aside to buy bulk packs of mostly corn syrup. I don't look down upon friends and family who do buy them for trick-or-treaters, but when it comes to my own decisions, I'm a little more hesitant.

Half of me is saying, "Lighten up! It's a treat! It's just once a year!" But then I remember that the kids in my neighborhood will definitely be getting their fair share of junk candy--from all the neighbors. I won't be making that huge of a difference if I try for an alternative, but I'll feel better. So what will we give out instead?

Jacob immediately thought of one of his favorite snacks: apples. Oh, you wonderful rural boy. Unfortunately, although giving out apples would be great, and would probably do no harm at all, urban legends about razor blades and poison have pretty much ruined this possibility for urban/suburban trick-or-treaters. Parents won't trust anything edible unless it's got a factory-sealed wrapper. Wasteful, but pretty much necessary. Fair enough.

Kids seem to like those individually-wrapped fruit leathers from places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Our local co-op carries them, too. Great! Nothing but fruit, no added sweeteners, kids like them. Problem is, although 40 or 50 cents each is an easy price to pay for one or a few, buying 100 will cost you upwards of $50, and you can't get a bulk discount. I'm determined about this, but I'm also not made of money. If I had oodles of disposable income, this might be an option worth investing in. But as it is...

Okay, so what about non-edible treats? I remember getting nickels and pennies from some neighbors when I was a kid. Somehow I can't see myself doing that, though. It's sort of like the impersonal aspect of getting money for your birthday, except that usually, you can actually buy something you like with birthday money. Not so much with the pennies.

So then I started looking into the plastic nasties. Cheap plastic toys. I felt kind of weird about that, too. Something mostly useless that a kid will play with for two days and then it'll end up in a landfill. Damn you, conscience! You ruin all the fun.

So here is what I decided on for this year: Halloween bookmarks. They are plastic nasties, but they conceivably have years of use in them, provided that the kids read, which I hope they do! Plus they have the bonus feature of a little traceable Halloween design. They appeal to both younger and older kids. It's the kind of thing I would have liked (and actually kept and used) when I was a kid. Hopefully that'll be true for the kids in my neighborhood. And at four dollars a gross, the price was right.

I have loftier hopes for next year, if I can get my act together. We'll see. Any other suggestions for trick-or-treat alternatives?

P.S. Soon after I posted this, Jacob happened to send me a link to this blog article on the Washington Post website today. Take a look.

use it up

2007-10-15T15:17:00.001-04:00

If you're still up to your ears in this summer's zucchini, try making this soup. Great with crusty bread on a chilly evening.

Catoctin!

2007-10-10T15:03:00.002-04:00

Is it fall yet?

It seems like every time I post I am still waiting. Tomorrow, they say. I guess we'll see.

I'll tell you how I know it's fall. The church where I grew up goes to Catoctin. I've been going there every year since I was a toddler, with the exception of only a couple times. When I was a kid our annual retreat was one of the highlights of my year: running around in the woods with other kids, sleeping in sleeping bags, helping the grown-ups make all the meals. Last weekend, we got to bring Khymi, and I don't know which of us was more excited. Khymi was mostly excited to hang out with her Dad's-house BFF, Big Girl Monster of Each Inch.

Last year it was almost unbearably cold. This year it was hot enough for shorts.

But there are always crunchy fall leaves...

There's always Cunningham Falls, and a snack from Pryor's Orchard...

There's always hot cocoa with marshmallows....

And there is always the company of a friend on the swings...

1987

1997

2007

the blustery day

2007-09-28T16:16:00.001-04:00

Well, let's try this "fall" thing again, shall we?

It's not supposed to get above 80 degrees in the next week. Today I looked out at the backyard and saw something I had forgotten about--leaves on the ground! After four years of living in apartments and city rowhouses, it's time to rake leaves again. I wonder if we have a leaf rake. There's a shed of tools and garden implements that we share with the neighbors. There's probably one in there.

It's the perfect day to be up and about without getting hot and sticky. But there's something keeping me here...

happy birthday, susie / los, panik!

2007-09-24T14:08:00.002-04:00

First of all, a happy birthday to Susie, one of the stars of Family Hack* and Khymi's little sister!

Susie is a kid after our own hearts. Khymi informed Dad on the phone last night that, "this morning, my sister woke up and she was crying, so I just sang 'Panik' to her and she stopped crying!" Clearly, a two-year-old who has her priorities straight.

Khymi is referring to this song by Wir Sind Helden. Ever since this summer, she has decided that it fits the bill for any scenario where music is required. We're really glad she likes it so much...we just hope Mama and Papa aren't on the verge of "accidentally" running over the CD in the driveway.

*Bonus: Family Hack is Khymi's mom and stepdad's resource blog for families on the go--check it out!

HPR Home Cinema, episode I

2007-09-23T00:57:00.001-04:00

Everybody, meet Khymi. Khymi, the "R" part of our family surname triumvirate, turned six-and-a-half this Rosh Hashanah (approximately) and has her own way with a number of things. One of those things is now The Monkey Bars.

"...and then watch, you'll find out that that wasn't cheating after all, because I go all the way back anyway..."

My daughter, everybody: she wants to be the player, the coach, the referee, and the commentator all at the same time. Loquacious much? I wonder where she gets that...

a better grasstrap

2007-09-23T00:16:00.001-04:00

What if I told you, dear reader, that you could have a better lawnmower?
What if I said this mower never clogs?
Always starts?
No expensive repair necessary?
No extra expense of gas or electric bills?
100 percent emission-free?
Less noisy, with only a pleasant, intermittent whir?
So safe you can even use it with sandals?
No risk of flipping over?
And best of all, cuts grass just about as well as a motorized mower, with only a little added exercise from you?

Gee, you say, why haven't I heard about these innovative new mowers?

Oh, because this technology isn't actually new. It's OLD and QUAINT and therefore supposedly OBSOLETE. You see, we just got a reel mower. You know, the kind of thing you push, and it makes the wheels turn, which makes these blades spin around and cut the grass. It uses food-calories instead of fossil-fuel calories. So you see, this new advancement, superior to the rotary mower, is actually OLD. Maybe that's why you haven't heard about it. Because hey, older technology can't possibly work better than newer stuff, right?

The best part of all? It's practically brand-new, and we got it for FREE instead of paying $100. (CraigsList: It's the new Amazon.)

Gee, you say, how does one swing that?

It's easy. You wouldn't believe how many people want to get rid of reel mowers once they get something motorized and fossil-fuel burning. On one side are all the benefits I listed above. On the other are, well, uh, a somewhat faster and somewhat closer shave, or in other words, the same quality with a little less human effort. Oh, and the technology is NEWER, so it must be better than that which is OLD.

To which we say: Fine! Please! Give 'em away! Joke's on you, suckers...

For now, I'll be nursing my blisters and - at last, after weeks cursing a broken-down gas mower - basking in the sweet smell of fresh-cut grass.

A step in the wrong direction for Maryland

2007-09-19T12:26:00.004-04:00

I waited to post on this until today. Yesterday when I heard the news, I was too frustrated and angry, and I would have just written some long soapbox-y diatribe. I'll try not to do that now. But I do feel like I have a lot to say.

Jacob tried explaining to me that sometimes, judges make decisions that even they may not agree with because their job is to decide within the confines of the current legal framework and the particular arguments with which they have been presented. And this one was tricky because the argument, as I understand it, was that marriage discrimination is sex discrimination, not sexual orientation discrimination. If you look at the example of the lesbian couple who was forced to separate because one of them was an Indian citizen and had to return to India because her visa had expired, and if they had been married, the American citizen could have sponsored her partner for citizenship, you could say that if one of them had been a man (something that is of course beyond their control), they wouldn't have had all the trouble they did. And that's unfair. But if you say, if they had been an opposite-sex couple, then you're talking about sexual orientation discrimination. It's semantics, but it's a very fine line, and the judges weren't buying it.

That's all a little hard for me to swallow. It's hard when from my perspective, the choice should be simple, and not a question of interpreting laws this way or that way. We're at an age where a ton of our friends are getting married, and I can think of three friends and their partners off the top of my head who would probably jump at the chance (or at least consider it seriously) if it were given to them. One of them is my best and oldest friend.

We struggled with the decision to get married, not because of how it would affect our lives directly, but because we felt conflicted and almost guilty about being in a position of privilege. This summer I wrote a research paper on same-sex marriage, and it made me think critically about what the institution has come to mean in American society. The counter-arguments almost always mentioned something along the lines that marriage exists in its current form because of the possibility of procreation, and opposite-sex couples are the only ones who can procreate "naturally."

I promised no huge rant, so I'll just say, if you have children, if you don't have children, if you've dealt with infertility, if you are a woman of any age, if you know children whose parents were never married and are (shocker, this one) totally normal, if you never plan to have children, if you have children who are not your biological offspring...think long and hard about the implications of that line of reasoning. Think about what really matters to you. "Legitimacy"? "Tradition"? Not so much for me. What matters are love, respect, admiration and dedication. Between any consenting adult partners, and among any family. Among human beings, really. And when you look at all of the marriage debate, those things aren't mentioned very much. Something's wrong with that picture.

We are very happy that we got married. In the end, it was what we wanted for ourselves. But I promised myself that I would try to help the effort toward winning this right for everyone who wants it.

So what can we do, now that the final decision has been made? The next place to focus is the state legislature. What couldn't be won in a lawsuit may be possible through legislation. If you live in Maryland, I encourage you to contact your state senator and delegates and tell them you support marriage rights for all.

P.S. The Washington Post hosted an interesting online Q & A session about same-sex marriage this afternoon. The transcript is available here.

alternaBILLY

2007-09-17T13:07:00.001-04:00

We all love IKEA, right? Sure we do. It's the whole package: a socially-conscious purveyor of inexpensive, space-saving and attractive European-style home furnishings, and a place you can take your kids where they'll actually look forward to hanging around while you're pricing sofas. If you stay through mealtime, no problem. Another family-friendly oasis awaits you in the store's cafeteria. What more could you ask for?

As if that weren't enough, IKEA is also the place where my dad has been happily employed for many years. So my loyalty runs deeper still. Dad is one of two store carpenters, which means, among other things, that he builds the larger parts of the "rooms" on the showroom floor (walls, kitchens, and so on). They have other employees (or in Scandinavian social-democratic IKEA-speak, "co-workers") whose job it is to assemble the furniture for display, but my dad can usually tell me the difference between the base model and the next best one, and steers me away from the real lemons. There's a difference between the fiberboard-and-melamine nightmare that'll only last you a year and the more durable pieces (for example, my steel-frame bed, purchased c. 1999-2000, that's been disassembled and reassembled over the course of five moves and is no worse for the wear).

Jacob had never been to an IKEA before he met me. If he had a nickel for every time I've told him, "You know, they have that at IKEA," well...he'd probably have enough for a delicious IKEA breakfast. And that includes coffee.

That all being said...IKEA's not the be-all and end-all. Since we moved into the small red house, we've been itching to put away all our boxes of books, but we had nowhere to put them. Our first instinct was to run to IKEA and come home with 300 dollars' worth of BILLY bookcases, but then we thought of the fact that a) 300 dollars might be a pretty good deal, but it's still a lot of money and b) we've been trying to quit buying newly-manufactured things when we could be saving something from the landfill.

So we decided to check out Community Forklift, a local organization that sells salvaged and surplus building materials at drastically reduced prices. What should we find on our first trip to their huge warehouse in Edmonston but a set of bookshelves, recently removed from the GWU law library:

Cheaper than BILLY, and solid oak to boot. We haven't unpacked all the books yet, but for now that bottom shelf has been serving as a "cat cubby."

Bonus: Want to get more mileage out of your IKEA stuff? Get inspired by ikea hacker.

summer's end

2007-09-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

The heat and humidity vanished yesterday. Maybe they'll be back, maybe they won't. Maybe that was it. The cat has stopped sprawling out on the wood floor during the day, in favor of resuming her spot on the back of the futon, curled up with her nose tucked between her paws. We turned off the A/C and opened up all the windows!

The 9/11 anniversary has come and gone. It's almost become a part of the start of a new school year--I wonder how long it'll be this way. For the rest of our children's lives? Amid the "crying bald eagle" illustrations and the trite nationalistic catchphrases, I was sobered to hear an sponsor's ad on NPR, a contribution made in memory of Leslie Whittington and her family. Leslie was a colleague of my mom's and a neighbor whose daughter I used to babysit when I was in high school. It still saddens and terrifies me when I remember that morning and the phone call from Leslie's parents in Georgia. But it saddens me just as much to think of the way our country has reacted and changed in the meantime.

Fortunately, there are nice things to look forward to about fall. Jacob's birthday and the Baltimore Irish Festival are tomorrow. We might actually get some yard work done this weekend without getting heatstroke or being eaten by mosquitoes. The band is playing a show at the New Deal Café in a couple of weeks. We'll be heading up to Catoctin again and coming back with apples, pears and cider from Pryor's Orchard.

And I'm actually looking forward to getting another semester of college under my belt. No exams this time, just hands-on work and case studies. My kind of semester!

finally, something you can use

2007-09-04T21:43:00.002-04:00

A Top Ten List of energy/trash/money-saving products and tips, from what we've learned so far:

Compost! Even if you're like us and freaked out about vermin in an urban-suburban area, you can get a recycled plastic compost tumbler that screws shut to keep out garden pests. Search for one on Amazon and you'll come up with something. And there is a ton of information online about what you can and can't compost.

Use power strips. We have our TV, VCR, DVD player and stereo hooked up to a power strip to stop the drain of idle current--when they're not on, the power strip goes off. Unplug the microwave and the coffeemaker when they're not in use, too--chances are you've got another clock in the kitchen.

Use a tank bank or other water displacement device in your toilet tank and reduce the amount of water your toilet uses to flush.

We found this little gem on GoodCommonSense.net--the shower saver shut-off valve. It stops the flow of water (or brings it to a trickle) while you're shampooing or soaping up in the shower, and when you flip it back on, the water temperature is the same as before. It's inexpensive and super-easy to install. Using it every time you shower adds up to a lot of water saved.

Recycle--really. Check with your local department of sanitation and see what they'll take and what they won't. The hardest thing for me to remember to recycle is paper--things like gum wrappers, small receipts, Band-Aid wrappers and other stuff you'd just toss in the trash. But it doesn't take long to make it a habit. We now both compulsively save recyclable materials that we acquire outside the house and bring them home to recycle. Cut down on the paper that's going into the recycling by canceling catalog subscriptions--you can shop online!

Switch to fluorescent lighting. People have been saying this for years, but now compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are becoming more available and more affordable. Besides, the higher upfront cost is nothing compared to the money you save on your electric bills. GoodCommonSense has a great selection of dimmables and hard-to-find sizes (and some LED lighting too), but for the basics we just head to IKEA.

Note:

Reuse! Any time you're about to use a disposable plastic zip-top bag, see if you can use a sealable plastic container instead. Or do what Jacob does and reuse the bag. Switch to cloth napkins and use handkerchiefs instead of tissues--I have to say this is easier if you have an in-house washer and dryer, something we didn't have up until recently. If you're a woman of menstruating age, consider switching to a cloth pads or a reusable menstrual cup (this may cross your personal Grossness Threshhold, but really: they save tons of trash and money). Use reusable shopping bags when you go to the grocery store--they're more comfortable to carry anyway. Or if that's not good enough, use them when you go to a store that's not the grocery store. Refuse a plastic bag if you're buying one or two items that you can really just carry yourself. Don't buy water in plastic bottles--get one bottle and keep refilling it. Buy used materials, too--why buy new what you can get at the thrift store or on craigslist?

Wash your clothes in cold water. I switched a while ago and I really haven't noticed any difference at all in how clean they get.

Avoid your car. We are lucky enough to have moved to a neighborhood where we can walk to the grocery store, the pool, the library, the post office, and the bus that will take us to the Metro station. Now if only I could get Baltimore to move down here... Anyway, even if you don't live in a city like ours, carpool or use public transportation if walking or biking isn't an option. Drive part of the way and take the bus or the train the rest of the way. And here's Jacob's favorite: slow down. The faster you drive on the highway, the worse your mileage will be. Make an effort not to go over the speed limit on your next long drive and see if it makes a difference.

Eat locally. Think of where your food comes from and what it took to get it to where you bought it. Support your local farmer's market. Buy groceries in bulk if you can. Grow your own food (or even just a small herb garden) if you can.

This is what I could think of off the top of my head. We don't do all of it all the time. I happen to like certain effects of globalization--being able to buy avocados, bananas and coconuts in Maryland, for example (although having an avocado tree would be swell). But we try to contribute in ways that we can.

What would you add to this list?

return to simplicity: food and music

2007-09-04T21:31:00.001-04:00

What a Woche! It was our third actual week in the Small Red House (only 1.5 months after moving in!), and there was a long-not-seen cousin visiting before she left for a life in Japan. And there was the darling daughter, being her usual exuberant self. And the wedding. And we put together IKEA furniture and bought bookshelves out of a law school library. And you were there, and you, and you...

It was all we could do last night to just make a (very, very late) home-cooked meal of tofu-zucchini koftas and chappatis. After a bite or two, we looked up at each other and exhaled. There we were, at last, together in our house. We'd gotten through it all, even if we never got around to sweeping the floors.

The moment was made all the sweeter by our local public radio station, which was playing a special show of Doc Watson and Jean Ritchie. I recall many a childhood afternoon spent in the den, singing along with Hazel Dickens begging for "black waters, black waters / no more in my land," and here was Jean not only singing it herself, but talking about Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the burnt swath of Appalachia lost to mountaintop removal, and the rally she attended at the UN recently, as an old lady. And her voice, like a coal-mine canary, Appalachian without shying from conventional prettiness, soulful without tearing at her own chest. So much like Doc's gentlemanly baritone, with its Carolina drawl and lack of pretension, latter-day Dixiephilic or otherwise. I got that catch in my throat like when I listen to Paul Robeson or Pete Seeger or Lotte Lenya or Johnny Cash. It's not because of any outstanding heroism on their part, per se, but because they are Big People. To hear their voices is like to walk beneath a centuries-old spruce: it dwarfs you with its majesty, humbles you with its tireless patience, and saddens you to think of its waning lifespan. These human beings possess enormous knowledge and love for mankind. Who in this world of record contracts and bohemian self-promoters will carry on when they go?

And so I put down my chappati, this small thing made with flour and hands, looked at the one I love, and sighed. What a joy is life in late summer!

the rest of it

2007-09-03T16:24:00.000-04:00

Well, with the wedding over, the "honeymoon" over, the marriage certificate in the mail, the houseguest gone home, and the kid at her mom and stepdad's house for the next month, I'm beginning to feel a little bit like this:
My semester actually started last week, but my classes were really sort of a distraction from everything else that was going on. Jacob starts his first Real (Not An Internship or Summer Job) Job tomorrow. And we can finally look around the house and figure out what all needs to be done, and when we are going to do it all.

My job this afternoon is to make a weekly schedule for myself and factor in classes, schoolwork, internship, and (the dreaded) commuting time. I didn't plan it this way, but I have nothing but evening classes this semester, so I have a completely unstructured weekday schedule while my husband is doing the 9-to-5. I find this pretty daunting. So I'm trying to create a routine that is equal parts productive and flexible without being hectic or housewife-ish. Wish me luck.

we deed it!

2007-09-01T23:34:00.001-04:00

more to come...

bachelor party, SRH style?

2007-09-01T11:13:00.001-04:00

I guess it's traditional now in our culture to celebrate the end of bachelorhood with some big, booze- and misogyny-soaked Hormone Bash. As if the Community of Like Chromosomes is bidding you farewell forever, or throwing a preemptive wake, or something. I dunno. I don't get it. (Maybe it's the appeal of people coming out of cakes?)

Once again, we have to be the low-key, nontraditional ones. If you'd like to throw a Small Red House-inspired Bachelor Party, here are two proposed itineraries, tested by experience:

1. Drive to Baltimore with fiancé/e, brother- and cousin-in-law-to-be. Eat delicious pizza in Fells Point. While fiancé/e is in class, walk around Federal Hill and go to Zeba Lounge for ~~fleecing~~ huka, hummus, and hot dolmades. End with Korean barbecue together, admiring the Korean beer posters and the waitresses' tonging skills.

2. Go out for family-style Chinese food with, uh, the family. Come home, put the daughter to bed. Drink a glass of cheap red wine, watch a short Netflix DVD, check email, go to bed early.

PROS: It's much cheaper, easier to plan, less embarrassing, and you're not drunk or hung-over on the wedding day. Also nobody jumps out of a cake!
CONS: Stories about the bachelor party may disappoint co-workers. Also nobody jumps out of a cake!

I guess that's how the future's done

2007-08-30T00:22:00.001-04:00

In keeping with the DIY nature of our wedding process (and life together in general), we decided the best way to keep our friends and families posted on any new developments would be (of course) to start a blog. Jacob? Maria? New internet projects? You don't say.

We went to get our marriage license today. Our parents and numerous others who got married in the 1970s and 1980s have asked us about the blood test. I'm happy to report that there was no bloodshed; we just had to swear we were of consenting age, not related, and that we'd never been married before, and that was that.

The next order of business is kind of an awkward one, I'm afraid. Once we had announced to all of our friends and family that we were getting married, and that we didn't really go in for the whole wedding gift thing, let alone big registries at fancy department stores, someone in my family (who shall remain nameless) offered this novel piece of advice regarding wedding gifts: "If you don't tell people what you want, they will buy you things you don't want."

Well, we'd be lying if we said there aren't things we want. Since we moved into our house, we've actually found ourselves saying to each other, "Someday when we have the money, we should get _______." Those blanks have all formed a modest wishlist, which we've put on Amazon.com (link to the right).

And all the wedding etiquette things say stuff like, "Don't inform your guests about your registry in the invitations. Inform them in the shower announcements." Invitations? Shower? None of those here. So here it is on the blog.

So, if you are the wedding gift sort, and are wondering if there's something we've been wishing for, we'd be happy and grateful to receive any one of those things. If you're not...no biggie. Honestly. We don't expect anything from anybody besides sharing in our happiness.

about small red house

2007-01-01T00:00:00.006-05:00

Welcome, friends and newcomers!

We started this blog after we moved into the small red house in the summer of 2007--one of many unofficial beginnings of our life together. We wanted a place where we could both post news and updates for our distant (and not-so-distant) relatives and friends. After a short while, it looks like Small Red House has taken on different purposes in addition to its original one, mainly as a place for us to share ideas, contemplations and stories, and a place for others to do the same. Some topics you may find here include:

Our ever-growing attempt to lighten our footprint on the earth, to live simply and in harmony with nature (even as we live on the edge of, as a friend calls it, "The Imperial City")
Sharing our perspective as parents (a dad and a stepmom) building traditions in a nontraditional family, raising our daughter as a child of our family, of her two families and of the world
Our experiences as amateur musicians/folk artists
Our current foray into urban farming and homesteading

This ended up sounding too much like a mission statement... someone's had too many nonprofit classes. We're not on a mission. Who knows what might make its way to the small red house. But we hope you'll find something you like. Enjoy!

Maria and Jacob