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Sipping chicory cafe au lait, listening to the rain softly pattering outside, chugging along on yet another thesis chapter. Life feels pretty splendid these days. The end is in sight, and while things are somewhat stressful, I am thrilled to have made it so far. Never imagined myself as a graduate student, actually…
Also have been looking for jobs, applying, interviewing. Getting rejections. I know there’s still time left, and that I should be patient, but thinking about unemployment takes my breath away. I’ve never been unintentionally unemployed; just thinking about it scares me but I’m not sure why. This is probably a good lesson for me in waiting on the Lord and His providence, I should try learning. One of my weaknesses is a need for direction in life: my carrot on a string. When I think back on the times I’ve struggled the most in my life, they are usually times where I had no set direction or goals.
So therefore I’ve been thinking about growing my own carrots. Figuratively and literally. There are volunteer opportunities, projects around the house, kids to babysit, cooking techniques to learn, gardens to tend, friends and family to visit. Just have to narrow it down a bit, and take my time. Really, I’m quite lucky- I don’t need to move, Andrew is employed, I have friends and family nearby.
Back to writing. Other things, I mean. Like a thesis.
Filed under: Personal musings
I have visited Venice. I am in New Orleans. And I keep thinking of comparisons… both are venerable, well-known cities. Both had industry and businesses at one time, and now seem to depend very much on tourism. Both have amazing food and architecture. Both have an odd affinity for selling masks. Both make me wistful and sad because I see decay that will collapse the city if the stilts of tourism no longer prop it up, and that the water that created the city is also helping in its destruction. Yet in both, as a tourist I feel like a gawker… observing the “locals” and culture as though it is an exhibit at a museum. I’ve always felt awkward as a tourist, actually. But especially in very populated areas.
New Orleans is well worth a visit, specifically the French Quarter (that’s where we are, anyway). Rich with music, history and heartache, cajun food, little niche shops. We went into a loom shop Saturday; where else do you have stores with six cats and three looms weaving rugs five days a week? Beautiful homes you can see nowhere else, with little hidden courtyards reminiscent (at least to us) of ancient roman atriums. We have experienced rice and beans, jambalaya, po’boys, chicory coffee, beignets, bread pudding with whiskey sauce.
What can we learn from such an old city? It is possible for people of every age and background to coexist… Maybe it’s because of tourism, but people seem to be quite friendly here. Granted, there are quite a few police and security present… but the locals wave to them and chat. Obviously not everyone has the same goals and ideas. But, we have seen the elderly, families with young children, young couples, college students, creole, black, latin american, asian, white, wealthy antiquers, bohemian hipsters, mardi gras party-ers, working class and the homeless in the space of a block. So very different from suburban midwest. And perhaps a more healthy perspective in the long run. We don’t need sparkly, clean and new things to get by… maybe the many shops in the city would disagree with me, but some of the buildings here are over 200 years old and still being used for very normal businesses. The cafe in which I’m now sitting has peeling walls, cracked window panes, and a dirty bare rock floor, but has customers both wealthy and common, hipsters and families. I’ve felt subconciously grimy the past three days, but I actually think that’s a good thing… our American ideas of cleanliness are somewhat abnormal compared to the rest of the world.
I’ve always liked to people watch. Here are a few more recent observations:
- From a vaguely-overheard train conversation. When you repeatedly respond to someone by saying, “that’s really funny” and, “that’s so hilarious” but never even attempt a chuckle, I’d recommend going back to, “uh-huh” and, “yeah.”
- From a coffeeshop on campus. I think undergraduate students tend to be full of self-importance. In hindsight, I think I was. Talking about current issues, having intellectual conversation, drinking coffee and smoking… they’ll eventually realize that they don’t know that much. Pretty sure I have.
- From a long walk. People who have the least to offer seem to always be the ones that do. Classic example: mom in a station wagon full of children pulling over to offer you a ride.
- From a walk on campus. Style is a concentrated effort, from jeggings to dreadlocks. It says to people around you, “look at me and know what category you can deposit me into.” As much as I can appreciate good taste and effort, I often wonder where our society is heading if we can spend so much time and money on our looks.
- Another one from the train. I like to listen to voices behind me and guess what they look like. I am almost always wrong.
I am chomping at the bit to be done with my thesis, and have been perhaps over-eager in planning life beyond May. One idea I had over the holidays started with a jelly melon I saw in the produce section of Meijer in Newark, Ohio.
What on earth was an african relative of the cucumber that has insides like lime jello doing in little old Newark, Ohio? Might I add that it has “horns” as well on its rind… definitely more of an oddity than a staple. This made me look more carefully at the rest of the produce section- what awesome diversity and quality!! Fresh produce is arguably the healthiest offering of grocery stores, but has undergone some complications over the years- pesticide residues, loss of taste as fruits are picked earlier and shipped further, price fluctuations, local vs. organic, and so on. I think it would be extremely interesting use this blog as a platform for exploring and “evaluating” local produce providers, and bring different current issues to light about production of fresh produce. While the average U.S. citizen is above the world’s median in terms of daily calorie consumption (I’m guessing, no figure to back me up), most of those calories are nutrient poor- making us overweight and undernourished at the same time. That’s a problem. There’s a lot that would need to change for us to fix this problem… government, agriculture industry, people’s perspectives.
So in any case, you may be able to look forward to a produce section coming to a blog near you sometime this summer…
As cliche as they are, I do love my New Year’s resolutions. It’s kind of a personal year-end review, if you will. What I value most about it is being able to step back from the day-to-day and take a bird’s eye view of myself for a moment. I must say though, I don’t really make resolutions persay. I find “themes” for myself. There are the never-ending themes- my faith, serving and sharing with others, my health, and so on… but this year I have two new “themes.”
Flowers from our wedding!
As you have probably deduced, I tied the knot this year. It’s the second life-long decision I’ve consciously made (my faith being the first), and it’s a little overwhelming to think about where to start in this lifelong relationship. From the first few months, however, I’ve gleaned several thoughts.
- Communicate… for those of you who know me or my husband, we are not prone to verbalizing our thoughts. What I have realized, however, is that I am also not prone to telepathy. I am really talented in imagining my husband’s thoughts when they are not provided verbally. So whether by word of mouth, texting or emails, I will be trying to communicate.
- What I want is not neccessarily what he wants… I am mildly obsessed with the tidiness of my personal space. When my parents visited earlier this week, I was wildly excited about the results: a scoured and shiny kitchen and bathroom, scrubbed and rearranged basement, new kitchen curtains. When he got home from work each evening, A was mildly pleased. It’s just not as big a thing to him. He has been extremely interested in exercise of late- trailrunning, swimming, biking. I’ve been too busy cleaning and organizing the house to join him. While I mean for the results of my labors to please him, I hope this year to drop the mop on a more regular basis and tail him through Ridley Park.
- Stop being completely practical… we are both calm, logical, practical people. While we were dating, our “dates” consisted of studying at bookstores and coffee shops, eating dinner together at home, grocery shopping, or hanging out with his family. Now that we’re married, there’s been plenty of these activities, but it’s a struggle to balance it with time on our own… for A especially it’s important to have time on his own to read, think, de-stress. This year I’d like to schedule date nights or weekend days where we can milk this “honeymoon” period for all it’s worth. No books or google readers (are you reading this, A?), no mops or brooms, one on one communication, and doing something together that we both enjoy but don’t get around to doing in our regular schedules.
Most excited about this guy for our garden.... Dragon's Tongue beans
The other new “theme” this year is our vegetable garden. A is in the midst of creating a seed-germination shelf for me, I’ve finalized my seed selections and am plotting out the yard and calendar accordingly. As much as I love vegetable gardens, I do tend to wear a bit thin after the first few busy months. So my goals in this area are as follows:
- Have a good start- soil is the foundation of a garden, and if you skimp on soil preparation you’re taking a risk with the rest of the year. One of our bigger expenses in time, sweat and money this year will probably be bringing in compost and such, then preparing the beds.
- Don’t overplan(t)! My eyes are bigger than, well, my gardening appetite, when looking at seed catalogs. Hoping I can hold back some this year, or get some friend or family volunteers to help!
- Slow and steady maintenance pace… getting out there for weeding, watering, planting, hardening off, harvesting, etc. on a regular basis can be difficult. I tend to want to get everything done at once, but then get burnt out. I need to make a reasonable schedule and stick to it.
- Harvest, preserve, and use the crops! By the time I’ve put in all the effort to germinate, grow, and harvest vegetables, sometimes (gasp) I end up wasting them because I’m too tired of dealing with them to bother cooking and eating the finished product.
That last bit sounds rather negative… I really do like gardening, but it really is also a lot of work. This will be my first full year, and I just want it to be a good one.
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Here at the close of the eve before the eve of a major gift-giving holiday, I find myself pondering presents. Sorry for the alliterations thus far, they just pop out sometimes…
Let me make a note that I’m just thinking about adults here… we don’t have any kids in our families yet, so I’d imagine that will add a giant dimension to this train of thought!
My husband has heard my scheming over this year’s array for family and friends, and came to the swift conclusion that I really enjoy giving gifts. I do, but only with the qualifier that I can come up with something that fulfills the right balance of fun and need for the recipient, and doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. So far I’ve done fairly well, I think… many of our gifts this year are handcrafted, repurposed, and so on (don’t be frightened, the cookies you may have recieved are guaranteed freshly homemade, definitely not repurposed). I also think that they will fulfill the purpose of showing the recipient our love for them, and be of use to them in the future. Awesome.
However, this goes directly against societal norms in the approach to this custom. Clothes, toiletries, gadgets, CD’s… for adults, it seems that we are expected to buy each other gifts we can either purchase for ourselves, or items that we really don’t particularly want but recognize as a “gift.” Take your bath and bodyworks gift basket for example. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice soaps. But unless you know a person is just in LOVE with a particular product, I think it’s generally known as a “gifty” gift. Gosh, I hope I’m not digging myself into any holes here… let me emphasize that I’m speaking mainly from my gift-giving standpoint; I’m quite pleased with any gift given to me.
What are “gifty” gifts supposed to mean? I know we’ve all had that year when we just could not think of something for cousin timmy, and just grabbed an item off the shelf… but should we bother giving gifts if we can’t truly think of something that they would value for one reason or another? My family has been experimenting in gift giving “themes” the past few years… recycled, homemade, couples’ gifts, exchanges, and so on. It’s a challenge, but rather fun. I’m really looking forward to seeing what “couple” gifts everyone came up with this year…
I do have to brag, my husband and I have already exchanged gifts, and I’ve got “City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America,” a lovely victory garden poster, and promises for a germinating bookshelf and catproofed basement! Woot! I feel rather outdone:-).
Merry Christmas, everyone, I hope you thoroughly enjoy some fun times with friends and family, and close out 2010 with peace and joy.
Filed under: Personal musings
With a dozen or so slides left to go on my PowerPoint, I need a quick break before continuing. Some random thoughts:
- I really still love my thesis topic. Will continue to wish I spent more time and effort on it, but I’m thinking this meeting tomorrow will kick me into high gear (fingers crossed).
- Mumford & Sons’ “hold on to what you believe” is awesome.
- Church this morning was refreshing, music and worship uplifting… I feel like I’m actually starting to work into the mix.
- I’m in a planning mood. While waiting for tea to brew, I’ve been measuring room dimensions and pondering about wall removals and kitchen renovations. Then on the way to Longwood the other day I was thinking about a 10 year plan. Everytime I walk through the yard I’m thinking about landscaping.
- I am ridiculously coldblooded. I’m sitting here with a sweatshirt and two blankets and still feel like ice. I’m asking for wicked good slippers and a portable space heater for Xmas, good grief.
- My husband is putting me to shame. He’s found a cheap-ish pool membership, and has plans to swim, run, and lift twice a week each… one day a week he won’t be working out. I guess I do need to crawl out of my general state of atrophy at some point!
That’s all for now
Happy Friday to you.
Our dryer is mostly broken and I’m pretty happy about it. Let me explain: we just had to purchase a new washing machine, and we were able to get a high efficiency model with a hefty rebate from PECO. It was perhaps the second round of laundry with this new machine that I realized the heat wasn’t coming on in the dryer anymore. Andrew’s been fiddling around with it, and it usually works for him… but just doesn’t really perform the way it’s supposed to. We discussed buying a new one, the cost was disconcerting to both of us. Then we talked about going dryerless. Sure, it’ll take more advance planning, and laundry lines in the basement and yard (depending on season and weather)- but the benefits are awesome! No $600 down the tube, we get to lose the highest energy-using appliance in the house, and it’s mostly better for the environment! Hooray.
It seems like money-saving goes hand-in-hand with being kind to our natural resources, health, and other things, which is cool. We’ve been using our breadmaker fairly often, and yesterday I tallied out the cost per loaf: about $1. This of course does not count the cost of the machine… thanks, classmates:-). The trick is that flour comes in one or two sizes at the grocery, and that yeast in those little packets goes fast. I found a food co-op in Media (of course) that sells bulk flour and lots of other things. You bring your own containers for everything, from produce to peanut butter. Fun. We’ll see if the cost savings transfer over to the consumer once I visit.
I’m hoping to transform a large part of our lawn into productive veggie garden next year. Although I’ll most likely skip the spring crop on account of my thesis, it’ll be interesting to keep track of how much we spend and how much we produce. I’m hoping to use this as a little informal CSA practice… friends and family, beware of the produce presents to come! Actually, rather than beware, do let me know if you’re interested in helping out with this project… Andrew and I are thinking we’d ask for a little financial backing, and then would treat you to a share of the veggies and whatnot throughout the growing season.
While most of us were not eating much in the way of beef yesterday, and I’m not sure of the numbers of turkeys raised in CAFO situations, I thought this video might be some food for thought. A CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) is an innovation of the 21st century where animals destined to be consumed are fed large amounts of food in the last months of their life. This process allows animals to grow bigger faster, meaning that more meat can be sold. The animals are also concentrated on a fairly small piece of land, allowing land that was grazed to be converted to housing etc. I think those benefits make it fairly easy to see how we moved toward this process.
HOWEVER, CAFO’s do have a few downsides. For instance, in such small lots there is no way there would be enough pasture to sustain the numbers of animals present. Grass does not promote fast growth, anyway… so instead these animals are fed corn supplemented with hormones and other oddities. Cows in particular are not corn eaters naturally, so they also need medical supplements. “You are what you eat” can be somewhat applied to the situation, in that the comprimised health and the drug-spiked foods these animals ingest does not magically disappear when they are butchered and make their way to a grocery store. I’m not trying to be alarmist, but it just doesn’t make good nutritional sense for a compromised food to be good for our bodies.
Another problem regarding CAFO’s is their disconnection from other agricultural practices. On the small farms of our past, animals and crops dovetailed into one another… the crops that fed the animals were fertilized with their waste. CAFO’s create an ENORMOUS amount of excrement, and there is really no place to take it. There’s too much for it to degrade naturally… so it is a real pollution problem. And so I will end my informative spewing of information with a lovely video that captures this last thought perfectly.
A wedding can really set back your writing. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it… with a move, wedding, honeymoon, three case studies and an interview under my belt, I’m ready to get back to posting.
Thanksgiving is a rather interesting time of year anymore. This holiday, to me, is a celebration of the end of harvest and readiness for cold winter months. However, I would venture to guess that everyone reading this eats three square meals a day, has raised very little of that food themselves, and has little anxiety about going hungry in the upcoming winter months. Global food distribution has quelled that fear and eliminated the significance of harvest time. So we have to find other things to be thankful for… which is okay, I think. In a nation as prolifically blessed with material goods as ours, we should probably have multiple thanksgiving holidays a year.
Another interesting perspective to me with this holiday is the historical groundings of the traditional dishes served. It seems that they fall in one or two categories: those that highlight a North American ingredient, and those that were popularized by a food manufacturing company.
Turkeys are native to forests across North America and one of its only domesticated animals. Pumpkins date back to roughly 9,000 years ago in the Mexico region, and were distributed throughout the country by native Americans. Sweet potatoes, from the Caribbean, were introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus and found to grow well in the southern US. Sweet potato casserole with little marshmallows on top, however, was an invention of marshmallow companies in the 1920′s.
Speaking of food maunfacturing companies, this is where green bean casserole and pecan pie come in. Green bean casserole is a throwback to the post-war era of Campbell’s soup, being born in 1955 out of a test kitchen. Karo syrup can claim ownership of the classic pecan pie, having created the recipe to sell corn syrup.
While looking for recipes this morning, I leafed through a 1965 edition of a Farmer’s Pie Cookbook. It was really the heyday of canned foods and instant mixes… one contributor effervesces about the joys of canned cherry pie filling, another gleefully confides that she can now make shepherd’s pie with the help of instant gravy packets. I probably sound snooty and purist in these observations… but really I think what we need is a balance between ready-made instant foods and simple homemade/homegrown ones. Understanding where our food comes from, growing and raising a bit of it ourselves to gain respect for the process, and making responsible choices are all part of the process.
I find it fitting that Andrew and I will be working on expanding our vegetable beds today or Friday; I hope that these efforts will increase our thankfulness in the year to come.
