Goddess Help any Bastard

Moving sucks.  It makes you feel itchy on every level.  Even physically. D woke up this morning, and we shared the same complaint with each other: we had slept poorly because we were itchy.  We had had long-overdue haircuts, but this doesn't explain the total experience.  We itched.  All night long.  And woke far more times than normal.... and normal with an infant, two adults, and two snoring cats in a queen bed, is an interesting stretch of that word.  "Normal".

Our whole life is now in boxes.  We both had a few days off from school, and, as a result, what we had chipped away at over the last month, box, after shredder load, after box, has become a full plastic- plates- only, every- corner-, cupboard- and drawer- in- a- box-, tote-, bag-, or crate-, experience.  It's a hot mess, to use the overused.  We own a lot.  None of it--or at least, most of it; we deleted what we could already, and are still choking--ought to be disposed of.  These are how many things a citizen of the Western world" needs."  How do nomads, bedouins, and gypsys do it?  How do they, turtle-style, carry all posessions at all times?  Everything itches. I'm going mad.  Clean cup--move down! And I'm about to add a whole work week of two- hour- a- day driving in the mix before I can even begin to unpack all these carefully labelled, artful arranged, delicately handled many packages.  And, my period is due.  Goddess help any bastard who gets in my way....

At least I got to see my kid's first, very few steps this long weekend.  Goddess pities this poor bastard.

Sweat into What is Still Someone Else's Equity

I painted with nice high toxin paint today.  And sanded and chipped off lead paint too.  I did this in the name of having my house.  I ended up at times slapping paint around, sending wild  splashes of it into the soil and landscaping, and unraked leaves at this house too.  It was not a good time to have to do as much exterior painting as was required to satisfy the terms of our mortgage.  And we had only the one day to work with, as the seller was resistant to doing much more than partially funding the supplies for the project.  All I can say is that after giving six hours to it, with five of us working, I'm not sure how I'll put myself together again if I don't have keys in two weeks like I'm supposed to.  The house genuinely looks better at least.  This was a weird snag, weirder than many of the bumps I've heard of when it comes to the things people go through on their road to renting a house from a bank (it's weird to think of this as homeownership:  I'll own it before I'm 70...but not by much).  But we-- and me especially--achieve everything only after many setbacks, forks, pitfalls, and deathtraps.  I had hoped somehow we were lucky because we looked at only a dozen or so houses, found this one so quickly after it was listed.  This really has to be the only twist.  I can't take having something else I've invested so much of myself in taken again.  I'm not sure there are pharmaceuticals that can even take the edge off the sort of despondency that will lead to.

Clubs and Realtors: Oh My

I interviewed today, and the principal seemed genuinely impressed with my idea of gardening in the quad.  He gave me both hope, and confusion, though, which is typical of my conversations (of everyone's conversations) with him, stating that he wanted to find a way to convince the superintendent to at least give me some kind of stipend, if they choose to keep the current advisor in place.  Sounds both promising, and a sign that the interview was a formality, and he may plan to keep status quo, regardless of inadequate and lame that "quo" is.  Here's hoping.  I know for sure I could take the thing and make its vision bigger and more adequate to what was intended in making a Green Team in the first place.  Hopefully, the supe likes the idea of gardening on the quad enough to be sold on investing in me.

We also got our current land lady to agree to work with us as our realtor.  I'm hoping the conflict of interest isn't an issue: she had dropped the hints herself months back that we should look, and admitted that she was hoping we'd get that to mean that we'd work with her.  I just don't want to see her motivation to keep us as tenants ending up being a factor.  But, to be honest, with us out, and a max of 2000 in cosmetic upgrades, she could charge someone easily another 300/month over what we're paying, and she'd make her commission off us too once we did find our place.  We have another address in mind and are just waiting to hear back from her about whether she was able to arrange a visit for us this Thursday.  This time, we'd be looking at a property that at minimum, needs 20,000 in work, but the price is in a place where we might be fools not to take it, given how many of our dream features are there, if the structure and guts are sound... and we could borrow that extra to get going on the projects anyway.  I'm hoping our search isn't as long  and protracted as other people I know have described theirs to be.... and that may be an unreasonable thing to hope for, but given how much of my life has been harder to achieve than anyone else I know, maybe this will be my compensation, and a bit of cosmic balance? 

House Hunting Really is the Most Fun and the Most Miserable at the Same Time

First house was, in my opinion, about a 60% match.  I loved its woodwork, and its kitchen... hated how close everything felt, and how there was no master bedroom door (the arch way was pretty and all, but holy no privacy, Batman!).  Loved the attic bedroom, and the way they'd made one of the second floor bedrooms into a dressing room/walk-in suite.... hated the fact that there was one bath, and no way to cram in a 1/2 later.  Hated, and this killed it, the almost complete lack of any land upon which to garden.  Barely even enough room to store a bicycle and a grill in the super shady back yard, and less than ten feet between the house and the sidewalk in front.  And, much of what I liked about the house, D. didn't even care about, so I'm seeing that we're on two totally different pages in terms of what we want, and while that should come as no surprise, it's just another obstacle that may make the whole thing more complicated than I want to allow myself to think about. 

I prefer to remain hopeful.  And, we already have a second house in mind, one which will need a ton of work but which could allow us a whole lot more house--and land--for a similar budget.  A different town, with slightly less reputable schools, but I know that other town too well anyway to judge fairly, given that it was the town I was schooled in.  A fresh start town might be best anyway. 

We learned a bit about realtors from that first experience, and have made some phone calls in the direction of finding an agent to work with.... and I think I should inquire about this new house by Tuesday if I haven't heard directly from one of our leads yet.  We may not yet have an agent, but that shouldn't stop us from looking, and seeing what connects, or doesn't, with this set of photos.

Being Green... At Things

I just realized why my entries about marriage, parenting, and even teaching fit.  One can be "green" at things one cannot do well, but at which will one eventually get to a place of maturity.... like green, punky wood that you do not want for your woodstove, but which can be stacked and set aside for a winter in future.

The house we're looking at first has a woodstove, which is a cool feature.  It also is old--built in 1870, so probably build with old growth wood, and there's no negative eco karma attached: by now, its surely neurtralized, at least, and old houses are much like vintage clothing.   A thing which lets you have a thing that's decadent and beautiful without feeling guilty because it isn't using any new resources. That's a thing that makes me keep looking at 1850-1900 or max 1915 or so Colonial houses.  Crazy-beautiful wood paneled walls, and in-built detailing.  Always more risk of structural problems from hell with houses like that. And I may look at tons more than the one we see tomorrow. 

I keep avoiding pools.  Why the hell anyone looks at a yard that could take a least four ginormous raised beds with which they could feed their family and decides to put in a chemical money pit on their property is beyond me.   The place we're looking at has a ton of mulch instead of lawn, something we are actually pleased by.  Lawn chemicals are not the best thing to try to have to suck up in your organic garden anyway.  See?  I'm still starry-eyed and green at this house hunting thing too, and it's pretty sweet that I  can still go to that high and hopeful place over something.   I do know how long this may take, but so many things feel promising about this.  And, in the end, it's going to be something I take for an adventure.

National Board candidacy feels similar: daunting, but do-able, if I make myself take it in steps.  We'll see.

And I interview for Green Team advisory on Monday morning.

My Daughter at 9.5 Months: A Prose Poem

My daughter is shaping up to be a cool little person.  She has a tough edge: bumps her head and keeps on going, bites like a piranha.  And she yells for attention.  Not cries, yells.  She has an angry baby that kicks in when you are not fast enough, not clever enough with the anticipation of needs, or simply, not enough.  In short, there is a lot of the stubborn people she comes from.  A lot of me.

I think she's also  clever.  She's incredibly curious about everything, especially what's dangerous.   She also loves anything with which we regularly engage: remote, phone, computer mouse.  Batterie'd things are probably not good chew toys, nor wires, I'd imagine, but with ninja speed, she finds these before you remember they were there to hide.

I am often tired, but in damn good shape.  I bounce, and bend and twist and climb.  It's pretty freaking fun, and the fact that there's that mutual benfit is pretty awesome.  I'd hardly ever find the energy to get this much exercise on my own.


Sometimes I wish I didn't believe in zero population growth.  I clearly make wonderful humans.  And, if I don't fuck this up, because the force is strong in this one, this could be a soldier on the side of the light.  I should make more and more of those.  It's only right....  if only.

 I make myself laugh sometimes, and I often talk to myself.   I sound like a raving person at times.  I will surely say things I don't mean, particularly when that little piranha in you is anything with a teen in the end, probably even sooner.  I hope you'll be able to deal with this.  In exchange, I offer family meals that sometimes get to be ice cream... or whatever else we have that you decide you want for a meal (one vegetable must also be eaten, and it can be anything: even a crap ton of Halloween candy).  To help you with your homework, and bring you to and attend whatever thing it is you need to do, and to be proud of you when you do well.  You will love to learn-- whatever it is you love to learn-- and will know that your job is to grow. For that, I will ask the right to be disappointed when you do the opposite, and to do what it takes to make you see the difference.  I only get to make so many soldiers.

People Think I'm a Grown-Up When I Call Them

And are impressed by our mutual credit,
Our debt to income ratio
And we are looking at
Houses in the town I grew up in

But my kid like music....

Winter Squash Fungus and Invasive Club Advisory Take-Over

I'm  really sad and disappointed.  The rainy season this year has led to some fungus, whose name I can't remember how to spell, and surely can't pronounce, making it so that winter squash, despite that name, will not be something I can store.  I've had seasons where the vernal equinox has  been celebrated in my house by the making of a huge batch of pumpkin/winter squash lasagna-- one of the few dishes I  can claim to have designed from my own little culinary brain alone, no recipes involved.  The fungus will make it impossible to keep and store squash, killing that tradition that would have been in its third year.  The only silver lining is in the fact that this year, we had the option to extend our CSA shares into December, and should continue getting fresh squash until then.

The rainy summer has made for exceptionally tall ragweed too, so as soon as  I healed (the scabs are still visible, so by healed, I mean stopped itching) from the poison ivy I picked up on my birthday in August, I've been suffering bitterly from allergies.  They've gone right into my lungs, too, so I hack and  cough, and sound like patient zero in some deep contagion.  I keep going to work like this, even though I've had days without a voice.  And, teaching without a  voice in classes approaching 30 students has been interesting, to put it mildly.

But, I'm excited to be  in the midst of trying to steal away a club advisory.  Every year, they have to take applications and conduct interviews for the few  extracurricular clubs that still exist, probably because of the supremely awesome $2500/year pay -out (there's sarcasm  there, if you can't sense it.... doing the math, if you advise a club properly, you get compensated at pennies an hour, no exaggeration, since post-tax that works out to something like $1900, something I learned from my one year advising a middle school yearbook).  So, I'm trying to steal the advisory of the Green Team.  The only "green" thing this team does is collect the classroom recycling bins weekly.  The rest of their time is spent in fundraising-- for non-green school events, like prom, etc.  I kid you not.  They do nothing else.  I intend to give them an actual curriculum, teaching them about how to meaningfully live in a green way, and in the letter I've written, and will reread one more time before submitting on Monday (deadline is actually Wednesday, so it's good and ready  within the required timeline), I propose to use the underutilized (read, not used at all) quad area to teach the kids how to grow their own veggies, and I've suggested they should be involved in local environmental actions, such as the attempt to rescue a very polluted marsh right next to the high school grounds, and travel to elementary schools to teach appreciation of the natural world to kids at a young age, where it's likely to stick with them for good.  Imagine proposing that a Green Team should to actual green stuff?  I hope I  get the position: I can't even tell you how much I dislike the team's current advisor, and not just because he takes the yearly stipend without knowing his ass from his elbow where environmentalism is concerned (for example, he's clearly oblivious to the fact that just about all of the school's recycling isn't getting recycled at all, because no one has  taught the kids that plastic drink bottles need to be sent with caps removed.  The caps are a different plastic, and because there's no time to remove these caps at the recycling center, all bottles with caps attached go right to the landfill.... In other words, the only "green" thing he has  them doing isn't even happening! I also know he got permission to use the quad for what I propose-- he was just given it, without solitcitation-- but did nothing because it means showing up at school  a couple of  days a week in the summer, and perhaps spending about $200 on supplies and/or working to get then donated), but also because he royally sucks as an English teacher, and if the kids even read or write in his class, I'd be desperately  surprised.  He's  also a douchey driver, something I learned on a day when we were together in pulling over for an ambulance, and he took it upon himself to cut me off  getting back into the road (he was behind me when we pulled over: did he think I planned to just sit there pulled over and masturbate when it was clear to go?).  In short, it may be only $2500, but that money should be given to someone who intends to take a club and make it legitimate, not just someone who advises a club solely to have (some of the) money to go snowboarding every other weekend.  I will be pissed if they (the administration) can't see that I'm clearly the better candidate  for the position, and I intend to mildly and diplomatically point out how poorly the club has achieved the goals it ought to have for the years it has existed when interviewed.  Here's hoping  reason and sensiblity prevail!

Teaching Creative Writing--Finally

I'm starting to really, truly love aspects of my job this year--which is something new.  I detest the politics behind education, both in terms of the euphmistically named "No Child Left Behind" Act, and just the politics of the city or town you live in, compiled with building politics.  As a brief aside on that other, other, other steaming heap of turd George Bush the second left us with, NCLB is a big disaster.  My supe posted a blog on his page that said it perfectly, though I can only paraphrase.  Though the act is a disaster, and as big an equity as separate but equal, its name forced us-- those of us in education, with unions and huge voting power behind us--to roll over and take it like prison bitches.  I assure the soap on a rope reference is purely my own contribution to the apt statement.  I will say nothing further, because I don't intend to often blog about the nature of public education in this country, but I could... for quite a while.  I love to elaborate on why I use that word "inequity," for instance, but I won't.

Anyway, I'm teaching a course in creative writing.  In creative lyrical writing, no less.  Yes, that's right: poetry.  So, I've discovered that it was complete bullshit that I am another Verlain, destined to have poetically peaked somewhere between age seventeen and nineteen, with nothing  but a handful of poems a year if I was lucky thereafter, fully half of them being a bag of suck.  Most days when I give my students an assignment, I complete it as well.  Here are the results I don't hate-- proof that forcing myself to write does exactly what it always did under the man I still admire more than I've ever been able to say to him with a keyboard: it makes good stuff happen sometimes, when I just write even when I feel like I can't.


This piece is a "found" poem: You get another text, often in prose, often something like expository non-fiction, and you force yourself to use lines from it verbatim.

Shadow Walkers

Only a person full of fears already,
Full of shadows,
is drawn towards
A life only in the night

But, immortality
Fear of death so common,
living forever seems like the ultimate fantasy
But, submitting to that awful bite
Holds the promise of a ghoulish paradise
Perpetual youth, perhaps, but such a cost

Draining others; living in obscura
Lurking, listening
Loving no one--
or loving, without fulfilment, without completion

Are we all vampires anyway?


Another found poem: this time I made them (us) turn to page 100 of an almost randomly pulled novel off the bookshelves of my  classroom, and use sentence 5.

O.C.D.
"As always, she watched me complete this task as if I were the most mystifying creature she had ever seen--and quite possibly mad"--Dean Koontz, Relentless.

The piles must move dozens of times in a day
Dozens-- no need to exaggerate and
claim hundred, but certainly dozens.

Piles of pencils, of scrap paper, of neatly
 arranged photocopy.

Moved as if a corner out of place
would topple the entire Jenga game
Moving what can be seen in an attempt
To arrange that which cannot--
the chaos of a life with so many variables,
So much to balance and keep aright
Fear sometimes soothed as the piles
Are made to march in order.
Inadequacies allayed as the
Uncontrollable dangers are contained
Within the ritual.


I am sorry, but that is it so far.  I edited both of them-- only very slightly-- as I posted them.  A third one is nearly ready.

Why I Don't Write Much

I suppose everything I wrote last time is already an answer in itself.  But, it's a complicated place, my little world.

I switched my farm share pick up to Saturdays, hoping that makes my work week a little easier.  Today will be my first Saturday pick up.  I'm pretty sure they have some local fisherman selling through their farmstand on Saturdays too, which is a cool bonus.  I'm the only fish eater in the house, but honestly, I'm the only food  eater in the house.  This is the list  (to the best of my recollection) of what my daughter's father won't eat: seafood, steak, hamburgers, pork, any chicken not breaded and fried, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, most leafy greens, random fruits, like peaches, nectarines, and plums....  In short, I do all that cooking and running around to feed myself and the baby, then get to go to the store for his organic junk food (we  have this uneven split, where when he began to carry our health insurance when mine lapsed while I took a leave to be home with the baby, I took on our entire food budget-- generally somewhere between 6 and 800/month: insurance costs just under 500, and is of course, from his pre-tax income.  He does not acknowledge this inequity... but it's just one of many, like how I cough up 150 extra per month for my "half" of the rent and utilities.  And, given my thriftiness in relying on that farm share, most of the food budget is to satisfy his stunted palate).  He loves pizza, mac and cheese, toaster pastries, granola bars, and peanut butter.  You can get him to eat apples, and an occasional salad (if you want to call lettuce with cucumbers a salad).

Yep, this is a time when I need to vent about the man I've spent the last ten years with.  I've spent that decade becoming a better and better cook, at least according to me, and everyone of our friends and family I've fed, and I've spent that same ten years swallowing my frustration over his digust at just about everything I make. 

I  swallow disgust over a lot.  The biggest issue is his lack of ability to set goals or try to improve his life-- and since his life is tied to mine, this means the only one of us who is really trying to advance our family, healthwise, financially, whatever, has been me. 

During our relationship, I  managed to earn first one graduate degree, land a teaching job, then land another graduate degree, in the name of increasing my salary.  I managed to get us health benefits for the first time since we'd been cut off from being on our parents' policies.  Even now, I'm contemplating taking on the challenge of becoming National Board Ceritified-- again, to increase my salary (and also my option: National certification would mean being able to teach in any state, not just MA).  During all this time, I've had the same disproportionate commute, and I've had to put up with being treated to contempt every summer because he's jealous that after a year of 60+ hour weeks, I get nine weeks off to try to put my brain back together so I can start over again every late August.  I've had to put up with him whining about how he's more tired because his job is "physical." In short, I get to bear his misplaced frustrations with himself.

I don't know how to fix this.  He works for a college, and until about a year ago, when something changed due to tax  laws, he could  have taken any damn class he wanted for free.  He could  have  had a bachelor's degree, easily, in those six years before the change.  I repeatedly offered to do something very unscrupulous,  and write all his papers  for him, because,  and I'm not trying to be mean here, he fails  tests a lot, mostly through anxiety, and, I believe he may be functionally illiterate.  I get that those are huge impediments, and it must be hard to overcome that crap.  But to not even try?

I'm not sure where I stand these days.  After all this swallowing of my pride and the things that frustrate me, I'm in a place where I live with a person who points out every flaw with viscious severity.  Last night's blow-out was about the fact that I hadn't checked in to make sure my Netflix  account hadn't started charging me more.  It's coming, it's true: Netflix is trying to get out of the DVD business and go to all streaming, and the way they'll manage that is by progressively charging so much for DVD subscriptions that they either alienate their DVD clientele, or cajole them into switching to streaming only plans.  It's a valid thing to expect me to be on top of my monthly bills, but he can be  so patriarchal,  acting like without him, I'd fall off some deep end.  I pointed out to him, as  well as I  could with my laryngitis strangled voice, that they send me emails.  All changes in billing are something they give a one month warning on.  I don't need to check: they update me.  And, he'd made me testy by  the fact that his greeting, after coming home at 7, after coming home at 8 the night before, was to harrass me about how his Father's Day gift, a blue ray box set of the six Star Wars movies wasn't here yet, even though it's in the stores finally.  I bought my own Mother's Day gift--something I already mentioned here--  and I'm still waiting to be given the money I was promised, and which I  already spent, on my birthday present, and I'm supposed to part the Red Sea to make sure he gets his present from me?

It's stupid, but it's a symptom of my relationship, which I'm coming to believe is irreperably broken.  He's an emotional infant, and yet I get to be patronized daily, despite the fact that I've  accomplished so much  in our time together, grown so much, and let's face it,  am by  far the more fiscally responsible.  I'm beginning to wonder if one of the obstacles to becoming debt free is the very person who bullies me about ever spending  on myself.

Why There Need to Be Drive-Throughs that Sell Real Meals, Made with Actual Food, in Compostable Packages

I get emails from the Slow Food movement all the time. "Slow" food, or to be a slow foodie, is a synonym, sort of, for being a locavore  Their most recent email was  all about finding ways to creatively squeeze slow food into your busy life.  Big surprise; it's what I already do-- cook in huge batches and then microwave and freeze my cooking for later dates.  What's sad, is that they didn't ever right anywhere about what that means.  It means that you never get to just pick up a meal on the way home and veg; it means giving up half your weekend to prep meals for the week.

But, I digress, and I'll be doing a lot of it today... The Slow Food  goals, from what I've gathered: getting kids to eat real food at school (my kid will NEVER eat caf food, never ever.  I'd feed her connective tissue and eyeballs first.... except I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Sloppy Joe's are... plus some sugary sauce that might also contain something that once was a tomato, albeit a heavily scientifically "enhanced" one), and getting people to eat locally, which, of course, means making more things from scratch-- slow food, he he.  Hence, my days of marathon cooking.  After working all day on Tuesday, I went to the farm (baby was with her father), picked my green beans and blueberries, bagged the part of the share they pick for us, then came home and made baby peaches again, plus got those green beans in the freezer, and cooked up my tomatoes.  This is my "slow" life. I picked up the baby and held her only twice that day, somewhere around 5 am, and then again at nearly 8 pm. She was sleeping for half the time I held her, so I got about 30 minutes of her awake time that day.


But, and here I'm writing mostly just to get thoughts that are evil out of my head... I hate being told how much of a good role model it makes me to my daughter that I do all of this running (the studies say this is true, that having a mom with a career is especially important for daughters). Right now, I feel like telling her exactly what I shouldn't-- that she can't have it all, not a career and a family, and a healthy body and marriage, and she especially can't try to live according to principles-- like my green thing-- at the same time. Right now I have the feeling that I'm only holding about half of each of those things in my hands, and just watching the rest of it, well, run. So, shouldn't I tell her not to try? That she should just pick one or two, because trying to do all these things well will only leave her feeling frazzled, inadequate and full of fear and regret? I  had no perspective on what it would mean to be a "working" mom (they all work, so I'm trying to be p.c. with those quotes). I didn't have a "working" mom, and the only friend I have who's a mom has twins.. .  and so has to stay home because day care would cancel her salary, and though I'd never say it to her, I envy her, and always want to slam her when she posts about the challenges of her life, even though I know it's unfair, and not just because she posts about these challenges with such grace and humor, rather than ill will.  But, I do want to slam her, because deep down, I truly don't think she gets how much worse it would be if she didn't stay home, and instead, got stuck with the feelings I so often have.    But, most importantly, I know how wrong it is to look  and think someone else has it greener than you.

So, to update on my resolutions, I've run once. In sneakers, that is.  But, running--that is, my crazy, fast paced life-- is getting old. I'm still lamenting that I didn't go to the beach that Friday.  I absolutely should have.  It would have been only my second trip for the whole dang season.  But, more than that, I should have gone because it's been like it always is when I'm back at work ever since.  I get up at five, leave by 6:15, get to work by 7, if I'm lucky.  When I get in, I put on my makeup (because I can dress, and pack, and whatever else while holding a baby at home, but I can't do up my face), sign in in the office, then I run around in my classroom, writing on the board, straightening desks.  I check emails, file papers, turn in forms, make sure everything I need for the kids (the stuff to support my lessons, that is) is photocopied and ready, hook up to the breast pump for fifteen minutes or so, then begin my teaching day.  I teach a 30 minute advisory group, then an 80 minute class, then have 80 minutes to continue to file and turn in forms and hook up to a breast pump again, and then, if I remember, to eat, before I teach another 80 minute class, then file and turn in forms, then drive, this time in much thicker traffic, to pick up the baby. (If you noticed, I never mentioned a bathroom trip.  I occasionally sprint for one of those between bells, but I've become the sort of person who has a steel bladder.  Basic occupational hazard, I guess-- that and I'm draining out fluids elsewhere).  We go home, and I wash all the crap from my lunch, the baby's bottles, the pieces of that torturous pump, and every other day, it's at least two loads of laundry so we have diapers.  Baby eats dinner, and by nine o'clock, I start to think about what might be microwaveable, or whether I'm okay with skipping my second meal of the day, so I can get us all, baby too, to sleep so we can get seven--interupted-- hours or so when we're lucky.  Yes, I skip meals a ton.   But as for not eating, it's not really something I notice (I might be hungry now, come to think of it, but I'm truly not sure).  The tummy gnawing feeling goes away.  You'll get headaches, and feel dizzy, but you  stop having that feeling your stomach acid has begun to eat away at your spine, now that its finished with all of the various viscera in between, and settle into a numb that can carry you a solid six or eight hours, at minimum, on nothing but coffee and water. 

It's quite seriously the best diet I've ever been on.  I ended my pregnancy weighing in at 186 lbs, having gone into it at a bloated 155 partly due to the fact that I had been twelve weeks pregnant, then got pregnant again eight or ten weeks after losing that baby.  The last time I weighed myself, a day before my birthday, I was back at 135, so that means I've lost 51 lbs since December (okay, reasonably, I can only claim to have lost 40... 11 was my kid, and other associated.... stuff)...  I was on Weight Watchers,  very unfaithfully, for about three months, starting right after Christmas.  The rest was trying, but usually failing, to get exercise (other than all that baby bouncing and  chasing, and going up and  down flights of stairs to get to my classroom and to do laundry that I never factor in), and just plain old not having time to eat.  It's easy to have a sarcastic thought that people who keep their baby weight must have a secret strength or support network I don't.  How do they find time to eat enough to sustain it, I wonder?  How  do they not burn off whatever they do get time to eat just through frenetic energy expenditure alone?   But, I know this isn't fair.  Their struggle is the same as mine, but manifests differently.  They don't even attempt slow food, and what they end up with for choices out of desperate necessity instead, isn't going to help them get back to their fighting weights.  I know it isn't green on the other side.  I do.

 Don't get me wrong: I'm happier than I think is healthy (psychologically, speaking) that I'm this thin again.  Things I refused to buy again, out of some stubborn belief I'd get back there, do fit me once again, like suits, and it's making it easier to stick to my resolutions about not spending. 

It's pretty amazing that I still keep at it.  I guess I need to let myself recognize that.  I still keep at it.  And maybe that's what the daughters in those studies  were picking up on-- the fact that those moms they hardly ever saw were persistent, determined bitches.

Another Jam Failure: The Grown-Up Blues

I'm pretty sure the peach jam didn't set properly either, and this time, I was far more careful about the directions.  The only thing that I can even think of is having used a less refined sugar.  It had a lot more molasses in it than I thought it would, the jam is brown... and it's still quite liquidy.  The peach of 09 never set fully either, but it wasn't this thin.  I think I could rescue it, though, and make a baked brie and walnut filo dough appetizer with it.  Damn, though...  all this work, and I'm getting nothing like what I planned.

I was quite industrious, though, and made sure I used a good deal of  stuff.  I added to the stash of green things in the freezer too, and after a batch of chili, will go through more than a few tomatoes, peppers and chilis.

We have plans to hit up a kid's consignment fair this weekend.   We need a third car seat... we were given one, but it's just not working out, and Grams needs a way to get around when she has the baby while we work.  We should buy more used baby gear than we do.

I  wish I had gone to the beach today instead of being responsible and running all the errands.  It was, effectively, the end of my summer break, and Hurricane Irene is supposed to hit this weekend anyway.  I'm glad I got things done, but sometimes, this grown up thing stinks.

Peaches

I ended up composting so much good stuff last week.  Pretty depressing.  I had the most dreadful lunch-- Swiss chard, just sauteed, then a bit of salt, but it was almost gone, and for three weeks now, I haven't eaten the chard.  I don't mind it.  I kind of like it.  But, cooking greens never really occurs to me.  However, as a meal, all by itself like that, it's somewhat lacking.

I did use most of the tomatoes, but some of those were lost as well-- probably about two pounds of seven.  The rest, I roasted, and filled a large mouth Ball jar with.  And, I think I just may try to seal it. Fruits seal just fine with the canner I've got-- mom's. Tomorrow I positively must make peach jam-- and the canner will be out anyway.  I need to hone in on whatever it was that made the universe send me exactly what I asked for, but after ten weeks of the supplementary fruit share I purchase along with our share in the farm working out to be only trucked in organic fruit (Washington state, Mexico... huge mileage!), rather than focusing on local orhards, as they originally said they would  when I first signed us into the farm last year, today, they gave us 19 peaches-- or seven pounds!    I was seriously planning on signing out of the fruit share-- especially given that the fruit has been little other than lemons, plums, and apples.  And, apples in summer are just about the worst things, given that they've been kept around since last year.  Plums are not a favorite of mine either, and they make dreadful baby food, going spectacularly sour when cooked.  The apples have had that redeeming grace, at least.  In a crock pot, ignored for several hours, peeled apples, with a little help from a blender, turns into a gallon-sized bag full of little baby food cubes that then get thawed a cube or a few at a time.  Easy.  And, apples make all sorts of more objectionable foods edible to my daughter, even turnips.

But, this week was particularly bad.  A cucumber, two heads of lettuce, a head of escarole, a bag of arugula, and a bunch of plums went to the compost, simply because I got too busy to deal with eating them. 

Tomorrow is one of the only days I've got left of my summer break, and tomorrow I make the jam I've been thinking I might have been too late to be able.  The peaches have come to me, and they shall be sealed, golden gems will be set in crystal, little bits of sun to set on the shelf and keep, and maybe to wonder over when I'm  baking some Brie deep into winter.... the stuff is so wonderful with Brie, too.  I'm honestly half making it only for that delicious fact.

I also need to make sure that green beans from last Tuesday, as well as daikon, some squash and eggplant, aren't lost either.

Birthdays and Diaper Dilemmas

We never did get in that run last night.  D. must have forgotten; he went on one of his after work trips to the woods for a beer with the guys.  I don't begrudge him doing this a few times a month, but he just did it last week, and we had planned this run when he wouldn't go with me Tuesday night.  I didn't mean to start a post solely about bitching about my husband though, and in the end, running is my responsibility.  And, he mentioned my birthday gift yesterday, so he's not completely in the dog house.  I know it's shallow to be this happy about it, but we're going to Pandora and adding to my bracelet.  My in-laws also gave me  birthday money, and I'll be spending that there too.

Updating on my double green issues.  I made two purchases today, but I don't feel I went psycho with either one. I bought the stock up of tights I'm going to need for back to work (I  can work with my closet, but I do need tights to do so), and spent about $50 on  8 pairs.  Totally reasonable.  I also bought a yoga bolster identical to the ones I've been practicing with since I started going to semi-weekly yoga early in my second trimester. I wanted a bolster but they're never very cheap, and often quite expensive, and it's hardly like you can do a bunch of supported back  bends over one to decide it works, or  doesn't, before buying, and because what's comfortable with regard to height and firmness of those things is so individually variable, I've been kind of paralyzed about what to do about getting one.  So, cool new bolster coming  my way, in a green- grounded elephant print, for $85.  My yoga budget is a separate thing.  I stopped dying my hair to have yoga money, and D. can't complain.  I firmly believe purchases like my running shoes or a yoga bolster are entirely different.   They are investiments in my long term mental and physical health.

I also didn't get any cooking done yesterday either, because it turned out my aunt was up from R.I. visiting my Grams, so I spent a lot of the afternoon there. 

Last night the baby slept horribly, waking up at around 20 past each hour, at one, at two, at three, again at four.... so she's only just now down for a "morning" nap and it's already noon.  Today, I really do have to do some cooking since we're out at a wedding tomorrow, on my birthday, plus I've got three loads worth of laundry I washed last weekend that got rained on repeatedly and now smell like damp yuck  and need to be rewashed, plus the fact that that laundry's been taking up my whole clothesline (plus drying racks and the railings) means I haven't washed any of the baby's diapers, and we're on day two of landfill bound diapers...  They're Seventh Generation ones, but still.  I have made my promise to myself not to use the dryer, but right now, it's so tempting.  There are probably, at minimum, seven loads backed up in my house right now, and at maximum, three can be dried at a time right now.  It's such a pain when I end up having to rewash and double hang things too-- and this load will have been hung three times, because I did go out in the rain and bring half of it in to attempt to dry it inside, only to get musty stink.  I'm also not looking forward to what happens to me when I'm back at school, commuting and hour and half a day, and still needing to do at minimum two loads of laundry (one of our stuff  to clean the neighbors b.s. detergent out of the machine, and one  of the baby's to keep up with the diapers) every other day, so that the baby has enough diapers.  At times, if it weren't for the financial  investment in our cloth diaper supply, I might cave and go disposable full time, instead of just for overnights and laudry emergencies.  It really isn't easy being green.

A Hot Green Mess: Or, what I wrote as I planned to set up this blog

Entry 1/Intro

There are a few things I know well enough, or wish to explore in order to know better, that would be “worthy” of blogging about.  I have begun a quest over the last few years to live in as green a manner as possible.  In particular, I’m working really hard on becoming as much as possible a locavore.  There are certain items I’d never attempt to give up that will prevent me from being any sort of purist locavore (one who consumes nothing not produced in a 100-mile radius)—like chocolate, coffee, citrus, olives (and their oil!), nuts, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon…. Perhaps others, but those are big ones.  The rest is becoming a matter of connections—our C.S.A in Hamilton, source of abundant vegetables, berries, and local eggs, also hooks us up with area farms that produce meat that keeps an omnivore undilemma-ed.   Just last week, I ate some grass fed, grass  finished steak from Loudon, NH.   We live in Gloucester, and at our weekly farmer’s market, we can get fish caught that day off our coast, supporting local fishermen.  A winery that I walked and jogged by four days a week at least all through high school sells their bottles.  It takes a determination (my freezer is a game of Tetris!) and the acquiring of some new skills (I’m stretching my preserving and canning abilities, too, with a goal of expanding past delicious jam soon).  But, it’s possible to live at least 50% of the year over 90% local, even in an apartment.    A big thing we need is more freezer space—something I’m looking into pretty seriously.   I believe the extra electricity is off-set by other benefits, like cutting out all those shipping miles and all that packaging (I try to buy things like flour, beans, and grains in bulk to reduce packaging—and save money—too, but to do so means a lengthy drive to Swampscott and Whole Foods).   The best is when we’re able to get ultimately local: currently, we grow for ourselves an abundance of herbs, many of them perennial, five varieties of tomatoes, strawberries (with a yield of one berry per year for the last two, I’m not sure  I should mention them….), three varieties of peppers, and chives.  Three years of experimenting have taught us what we can do well in our small little apartment dwelling guerilla style container and raised bed (two small ones—new for us this year) gardening, and what we can’t (failures: spinach, chard, beets, lettuce, sunflowers, eggplant, squash).   I have had a solar dehydrator since last year that I ought to bust out:  much of what we grow next to the driveway can be preserved in that manner.

                                Other green goals: we started composting this year, keeping all the kitchen scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds and such in a pile under the leaves in the woods past the fence behind our building.  Not much yield yet, but while I’d love to have a source to enrich the growing soil for our raised beds and containers and our house plants, the fact that we keep the stuff out of the landfill makes me content.  I drive by an old landfill on my way home from work every day—in Peabody next to route 128—and you’d swear you were driving by a dairy farm.  Methane is peculiar, in that it has the same smell no matter its source.  And, vegetable matter that rots anaerobically because it was underground in a landfill makes the lovely stuff, a far more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2.

                We’ve been putting out our recycling curbside for seven or so years now—however long we’ve lived here.  We knew full well that because we don’t have city trash pick-up (apartment dwellers, remember?) we technically weren’t eligible to put out a bin every Thursday, or Friday in a week with a holiday, but we did it anyway.  The truck was stopping at the houses on either side of us, and recycling actually generates a profit, so, why not?  This summer though we received a cease and desist letter.  The city has caught on to us somehow.  I feel lucky that we have other recourse: the recycling will now go to the husband’s work, into recycling dumpsters the college keeps on campus for the students in the dorms.  But, isn’t it odd that one must resort to guerilla tactics to recycle?    Humanity truly does seem to want to hold the plastic bag over its own face…

               

Entry 2: Green Sins

I have my green sins though.  I’m currently trying to rehab myself from a retail addiction.  I’m not doing so well.  My last purchase was only days ago.  I technically ”needed” the sunglasses (scratched lenses on the one pair that were actually impairing my vision, and a big chip in the lens of the other), but the scarf was simply an impulse.  I spotted something beautiful and acquired it.  I blame this on a number of things—being a Leo, a cat who craves beauty, being a child of the hedonistic ‘80s.  And, I’m trying to find a greener outlet for my urges.  Vintage clothing has been a love for a bit now as well, since I discovered an excellent vintage shop in Vermont about five years ago on our annual camping trips.  I own a very well-conditioned dress from the 1940s, and a sundress from the 50s that had some condition issues, but which was creatively worked to disguise the worst of them (tiny pleats cover stains).  An embroidered peasant dress (in impeccable condition) and lace trimmed maxi skirt (orange floral print disguises a few orange rust stains) from the 70s were my most recent acquisitions, on a trip up not two weeks ago.  The same trip yielded my first score that will give me a project.  I started watching a show recently on Planet Green (which never seems to have any more “green” shows, it seems, just Discovery network reruns) that I fear may have been cancelled, called “Dresscue Me” about a woman whose  business involves selling vintage—sometimes in its original form, but more often than not, creatively revamped—sleeves cut off, hems radically shifted, etc.  So, inspired to take on my own project, I found a little girl’s dress from the 40’s that I intend to rework a bit in the sleeves, and wear backward.  It’ll make a really cute little wrap-ish style blouse, and I’ll let my daughter borrow it when it’s her size and then claim it back when she’s outgrown it.  

 I think I need a new sewing machine (I broke mine years back) and to look into whether the vocational school still has an adult ed sewing class, since my attempts to self-teach are what destroyed my machine in the first place.  It might not be fully eco-friendly for me to start sewing dresses and things from new (which I’ll surely end up doing as well as reworking my finds along the way), but it certainly will save money, and besides, there’d be no labor conflict at least.  Automatic fair trade, when home made!

Entry 3: Roots and Magic

When it comes to those preserving skills, I’m pretty lucky to have  grown up how I did.  My mom found a way to get us coveted, wait-listed plots (more than one, yes: three, in fact, in an L-shape.  There was a smaller chunk when I was much younger, but I really only remember the L-shape) in a community gardening area in my home town.  We had to fight some  invasive perennials intentionally introduced by their previous worker (the benefits of comfrey are not significant enough for me to understand what he was thinking with that one),  but I remember a lot.  There was the time I “weeded” out whole rows of young beets, really believing I was weeding.   I remember being fascinated that while peas all look the same going into the ground, when their viny tendrils snake their way up the strings you set weeks before and set out blossoms, the flowers are often in very different colors, purples, white, yellow.   I remember the scourge of Japanese beetles, their grubs, and the stink of the pheromone lures set out to try to manage their predation (I *think*-- note to self, look this up—that they like Brassica especially, and my mother was always growing broccoli, kohlrabi and cauliflower).    I remember building tee-pees to support pole varieties of green beans, and the failed experiments with the melons, which just didn’t seem to find our seasons long enough.   I remembered planting marigolds to protect nightshades (tomatoes and eggplants, not potatoes for us).    I know my mother pickled things, but if she canned vegetables, I don’t recall.  I don’t think we ever had a pressure cooker, so I tend to doubt it.

                More vividly, though, I remember sessions of berry-picking, both in orchards where you paid for the privilege or, more often, in random spots eyed while driving.  It almost seems like weaving a fictional tale to describe these episodes, when my mother would spot a cluster of blackberry or raspberry bushes off on the side of a highway or road somewhere, and less than a day later, we’d converge as a group, comprised of myself, my mother, and her mother.  And, we almost always met up with the same  little biodome of species.  Berries draw in bees and other pollenators, which support spiders, and there are plenty of snakes too, those who eat insects, and, I suspect, since some we saw were larger, those who eat things like birds and rodents also drawn to wild berries.  And, wild berries are thorny.  But, these berries, harvested under those odd and uncomfortable conditions (spiders and snakes, oh my!) would end up in a cauldron, then in sparkly quilted jars that somehow were sealed for good, somehow with only steam, then in the most amazing peanut butter sandwiches.  Peanut butter is not a food I will eat, unless with a generous amount of this magically transformed stuff we call jam. 

                I made my own first batches of jam in 2009.  Blueberry and peach.  The blueberry turned out tremendously.  I’d never had blueberry jam from my mother—as it turns out, my father doesn’t like blueberries, as hard as that as if for me to comprehend.   The texture was excellent, though, if I was a bit disappointed to having to resort to only IPM berries purchased at the weekly farmer’s market.  Later that season, I also made a batch of peach jam, with fruit from the same vendor.  I was less impressed with the texture of this effort—a bit too liquidy; I think it needs more fruit than specified, as well as a mix of unripe peaches—but its taste was amazing.  I hope I haven’t waited too long to get peaches from some local source—perhaps Russell Orchard in nearby Ipswich (less than 10 miles away)—especially as that batch of peach jam made in ’09 went extinct this past winter.  Organic and local, where tree fruit is concerned, isn’t possible.

                This year, we had amazing strawberries, and I was incredibly lucky, snagging the last six pints at the whole market that day, and having that score be further enhanced by the fact that the berries came from the organic farm we have a share at.  Then, I messed up.  I was in a hurry, distracted by being at home with an infant, and with my memory blurred  by having had a whole jamless year pass, I failed to notice, and therefore, to follow, all the directions.  The ingredients were measured appropriately, but were not added at the right times.  The sugar went in from the beginning, not after waiting for the fruit and pectin mix to boil.  The result was not the  jam I was hoping to be enjoying on peanut butter all autumn, but a syrup.  It’s far from a total loss: it proved to be delicious as a topping on Danish pancakes, and makes a killer milkshake, blended up with some vanilla ice cream and milk, but, it is not what I had aimed for.    Things get discovered in mistakes sometimes, though.

Entry 4:  Less is More? (8/15)

The only time I ever really “shook” my retail addiction was for about a year and a half or so.   I  stopped watching television and reading fashion magazines. I was revolting against things from a feminist angle at the time, at least with the fashion magazines, as they had had a part in giving me an eating disorder and general body dismorphia, and besides, my undergrad professors only really knew seventies feminism well, so I got this idea that I had to stop shaving to make a statement about how men have been cultured to be pedophilic.  That’s maybe sort of true, but I simply don’t like my hairy self.  I like the inner person , of course, as much as I always have (which honestly , isn’t a whole lot some days), but she’s a lot prettier when she removes the excess fur.  I’m partly French, and part Jew, all of which adds up to being a pretty,  well, Yeti.  So, razors and tweezers are friends.   Fashion magazines are around from time to time, but I understand that airbrushing is to create fantasy, not a tool for torturous self-comparison.

 Giving up the t.v. wasn’t all my choice—not my “choice” at all. I had an odd man-friend at the time (I won’t call him a boyfriend: he was too old for that label, and honestly, “friend” is a bit of mislead as well, but that’s another entry).  He believed t.v—and music with lyrics, at least in English—w as the devil.  Maybe it’s a little true.  Both t.v. and pop music introduce things into our heads we might not come up with otherwise.  Music  has mantras that lodge in.  You find yourself singing them, thinking it’s only in your head, and only when someone hears you, recognizing how truly crass that set of lyrics burned in your mind really is.  But, t.v. is a great one of manipulating the Capitalist demon born, I over-simplistically claim, of the fact that I was a child of the hedonistic ‘80s.   For me , the great weakness will always  be fashion.  But, the influence t.v. has in driving me to go out and  buy yet more clothing isn’t ads for sales; it’s costuming.    I get inspired by a look, want to recreate it, then set out to find the pieces necessary.  

But, in that year or so that I lived wholly without pop  culture (I missed Star Trek, Enterprise,  doh!) I also managed to erase a $5000 credit card debt I had amassed in only the two years I’d had credit—a pretty amazing feat, in those days of working for tips.   I dressed like a hippy ragamuffin (seriously, I loved  showing  off the fact that I  was wearing patched things, and I gave up underwear of any kind, rather than having to replace it), and I don’t  want to go back to that phase, but there are things about that time that I  wish I could recapture.  I made what I had work; what I had in my closet was always enough, no matter what came up in my social calendar.  I dress better now by leagues and miles, and I truly could live out of my closet, replacing only things that wear down by nature, like t-shirts and panties, tights and leggings, for years and years.  But, to build that wardrobe was costly. My debt, for the record, is in about the same  place these  days (or about $5000, not counting some loans for grad school), but the sad thing is , I’m  a water treader.  For instance, in the past three months, I’ve  sent $1700 to my  card, but my balance is more or less the same, because that’s about what I spent in the past three months too.  I’m not totally sure what I spent it all on either.  I know  a Pandora bracelet and a wrap watch  were in the mix, as well as clothes, both for myself and my daughter.  My husband’s Father’s Day present, too, I suppose (to be “fair”, without over back-pedalling, the Pandora was a combo of my birthday and fifth anniversary presents; the watch, Mother’s Day—and yes, it’s typical for my husband to offer nothing, and assume I’ll indulge myself.  No wonder his debt, on credit cards anyway,  if half mine!  He’s never brought up the fact that my birthday is on Saturday, never asked if there’s anything special I’d like, and here, honestly, I am just talking about the gesture, not some stuff—but, again, that’s another topic)

And, I’m  an emotional buyer.  Perhaps it’s like those people who are addicted to food.  Enough is never enough.  I set goals (like if I don’t buy anything for a year, other than underwear, socks, and other true necessaries, all purchased only with real money, not plastic, I can have that quilted Burberry jacket I’ve fantasized about for three years: that’s the new  carrot I’m dangling) but I impulse buy and blow both the original budget for the coveted item ,and worse, go way past that.  (I could  have  had three Burberry jackets, with some extra  for a scarf, with $1700, for instance).  But, buying pretty things makes me feel pretty, so for just a moment, I forget why I hate myself.    But, I hate where I am financially.  True, we don’t make a huge amount of money, but really, should my little brother have beaten me to home-ownership, even if he did have a huge lead I didn’t of an almost ten extra years at home to not have bills?  I think not.  Would I be granted a mortgage anyway?  Hell, yes, but only because my debt isn’t a lot compared to some, isn’t overburdensome compared to my income,  and I always pay, yada, yada.  But, do I feel good about it?  Not at all: it’s one of the many areas in my life that leaves  me feeling like I’m  a stupid little kid, and no one should have ever handed me this bike, especially  without training wheels, and sent me off on my own.  But, does anyone really get much more training in these matters?  Probably not.  So, why are some people capable of living within their means, and I insist on having the best of everthing, on buying champagne, when I can afford tap water, and maybe an herbal tea bag to spice it up?

And, what’s worse is I know how this conflicts with my  green living ideals.  Sure, I buy vintage, and organic cotton, fair trade, and all that, but not always.  Far from it.  More often than not, I’m shopping online, buying random crap I don’t really need.  I don’t think I ever repeat an outfit (garments yes, whole outfits, no) in an entire school year, and yet I can easily spend $500 in a single spree.    Making things get made (raw materials and energy), and making them get shipped (more raw materials and energy).

Some things do work.  Like walking away, telling myself I can go back for it if it really feels that important after a day or more has passed. Honestly, that one is at least half of the time, just the trick.  The other half, I’m sometimes spared because someone else snags it before I get to it, and sometimes, I’m spared because I’m too lazy to go back.   But, sometimes even a day isn’t enough to keep me from turning a luxury into a necessity, because that, I can do well.  If it makes an outfit perfect, it’s a “need.”

I think running could work though.  It required another purchase (decent sneaks),  but a purchase made consciously, and with the intent of finding a healthy addiction to supplant the one I hate the most.  The one that makes me a hypocrite—and here’s the sticky thing.  That feeling of hypocrisy is one of the ones I try to kill while pursuing that next perfect dress (or bag, or pair of jeans, or pair of shoes, or….).    I think the walk away method is still a huge part of the strategy, but  I think in the end, that I need to add a new mantra to my way of thinking.  Instead of  making purchases to make myself feel better, I’m going to start setting aside a play stash, and I’ll hit it up when I’m feeling good about myself, and like I deserve a reward.  (A recent movie is my source here: in it, a character shared with another her uncle’s philosophy on drinking: Never drink to feel better; only drink to feel even better.  So, never shop to feel better; only shop to celebrate feeling better!) For now, I think just some positive movement in the direction of becoming debt free—actual progress with that credit card balance—is the thing to reward myself for, when that right time comes. 

In the meantime, I just hit up the saving account that had our house money in it (but far from all of it, thankfully).  And, it’s going to my debt, because my husband’s right: it’s not really saving when you still have debt.  I may need to spend some to keep my credit going, but the hypocrisy cycle just has to end.  The feeling is ugly, and the piles of earth-abusing threads I’ve collected isn’t pretty enough to really cover it.  It comes right on back, and no one can keep up with that kind of financial hemorrhaging.

Entry 5: Progress and Plans (8/18)

Using the baby’s morning nap,  now that I’ve packed the diaper bag (except her food) and dressed myself and prepared for my trip to the dentist, to update on things in my green little world.   

I went for a “run” yesterday, my first one in I couldn’t even tell you how long, only to discover I’ve got a lot of work to do before running will be comfortable and enjoyable.  I ran, then walked, then ran, then walked, until the baby threw a crying fit in her stroller, so for about a half hour.  I came home feeling slightly queasy, then attending to the baby’s needs instead of downing a bunch of water , left me with a massive dehydration headache.  But, right now, I’m  planning a tandem “run” with my husband this evening, so I’m still in the game.

On that topic of dehydration, here’s something I’m irritated with: makers of the BOB stroller: charging me $388 for your stroller, as lovely as it is, and not including  a freakin’ bottle holder, and instead, making me pay an extra twenty bucks for one, is lame. Lame beyond lame.  There’s taking Capitalism to some ultimate piggy limit, lemme tell ya.  Charge me an even $400 and put in the accessory you know every damn owner of the things, designed for athletic use, hello!, wants.  Random vent over.  Clearly, if I stick with this, the $20 purchase is one I will justify.  Who can run without access to water?  Keeping it stashed in the cargo bin under the baby just results in not drinking any the whole run, then being a dehydrated mess later,  if yesterday’s experience means anything.

So, a run tonight.  I also have to go to the dentist, obviously (I forgot I had the appointment, so thank goodness for those reminder calls!).   I also need to process some of our CSA share for the week, as well as our backyard goodies.  Usually, I do this on Wednesdays, but it’s Thursday sometimes too.  I’m drowning in tomatoes.  I need to roast piles of them.   Maybe this weekend I can drag out the canner and can a jar or two. I also need to roast beets, and probably, I ought to cook up some eggplant and zephyr squash.  I think I’ll put the eggplant and squash in some sort of pasta bake thing, as I have some ricotta in the fridge approaching its date.   But, I’m also excited for the fennel that made its first appearance in our distribution for the week, and I have a caramelized fennel and onion risotto recipe on the fridge that appeals to me too.  Maybe I’ll even shred some zucchini for bread, and freeze it that way (I have two recipes worth measured out in little baggies in the freezer already).    I wouldn’t be  surprised if  some of this  processing and cooking actually takes place tomorrow, but I’ve got an afternoon to look forward to, anyway.