tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19301426858905143382024-03-13T14:39:25.254-04:00Adapting in PlaceMy place for figuring out how to get my family through the next 10 years of upheaval, economic disaster, climate destabilization, and oil depletion, all from a house on a regular city block lot in a small midwestern town. And stay sane. Well, we'll see about the sanity part, one must prioritize after all...Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-34452173746390162412012-05-22T16:40:00.002-04:002012-05-22T16:40:44.729-04:00The Importance of Lies(*tap tap tap* Hello? Is this thing on? Oh, good. Alright, Hellooooo blogosphere! I'm back, for now, sporadically. You know how I am.)<br />
<blockquote>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007183/" style="color: #70579d;">Death</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1890784/" style="color: #70579d;">Susan</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers? </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007183/" style="color: #70579d;">Death</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies. </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1890784/" style="color: #70579d;">Susan</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: So we can believe the big ones? </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007183/" style="color: #70579d;">Death</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing. </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1890784/" style="color: #70579d;">Susan</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: They're not the same at all. </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007183/" style="color: #70579d;">Death</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged. </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1890784/" style="color: #70579d;">Susan</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point? </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007183/" style="color: #70579d;">Death</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">--"Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
I use the above quotation a lot. One might even accuse me of abusing it (*ahem*), but it's so bloody profound that I think it would actually be hard to overuse. However, I think it is very easy to underestimate the power, the point, or the import, of what is packed into this set of lines. And what's so neat about these lines is that the meaning and depth of them keep unfolding for me. I think I've got my brain wrapped around the message, and then WHAMMO! whole new perspective opens up before my eyes. Awesome.<br />
<br />
I've spent a lot of time this morning thinking about cases for action--that is, reasons for why action is better than inaction, or worthwhile at all, or not a waste of time, etc. I'm talking about this in a very generic sense on purpose. I'm not talking about "the case for fighting climate change" or "the case for adapting in place" or any other particular "case for blah-blah-blah". I mean the more generic "what is the strategy by which one determines that something is worth doing." Because I'm sure there are plenty of things that really <i>are</i> worth doing, and plenty that <i>are not</i> worth doing, and it might matter which one is which when deciding things like, oh, how to live your life.<br />
<br />
I've seen lots and lots of "cases for action" for a variety of topics, and I like a lot of them in various situations. For example, I've always thought that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager" target="_blank">Pascal's Wager</a> is a perfectly awful rationale for agreeing with any particular religious doctrine, but a pretty wonderful rationale for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JnxtITOzug" target="_blank">changing one's lifestyle to combat climate change</a>. I'm also favorably disposed to arguments for action based on the marketing strategies of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_leadership" target="_blank">opinion leaders</a>" (and I really could have sworn I'd written a post about that at some point, but right now I'm not finding it. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, linkit, wouldja?) I find these positions and others fairly persuasive, at least for certain topics.<br />
<br />
There is one core problem with all of these, though (isn't there always)? Almost all of the cases for action I've seen are predicated on the idea that one has the power to purposefully change their world, or at least, their own situation. Any case for action you want to pick, that's pretty much operating somewhere in the background. Your decision to make X, Y, and Z changes in your life will (at least likely) have the affect of A, B, and C in the world, in society, in your own life, etc. These cases for action, then, revolve implicitly around the need to convince you of your own power--that <i>you</i> can do these things. Think of the great (if overused) quotation from Margaret Mead, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."<br />
<br />
But what if you don't believe that we have the power to purposefully change the world? What if you genuinely, thoroughly, not-gonna-be-convinced-otherwise believe that the rank & file humans (i.e., us) have been so thoroughly stripped of our power that we cannot even make purposeful decisions in our own lives? That whatever sense of decision-making and personal power we have is little more than self-deception in order to keep us chugging along? When the distinction between "redesigning your life to plan for the collapse" and "redesigning your life to react to collapse" becomes deep and meaningful, and you think that the first one is off the table, what then?<br />
<br />
This isn't an academic question for me (and certainly not for my husband), because I pretty much agree with this position, at least when I pull off my self-deception goggles. I don't think that we are really capable of working to change our society in ways that will have any effect. If we ever really had that power, it's long gone. Deep down, I believe that the most power we have left is to attempt to map out a lifestyle that will be capable of <i>reacting</i> to collapse when it happens, not in any way to steer how it goes or work towards any specific outcomes. We'll be riding the wave, not driving it.<br />
<br />
So if I really believe this (and I do, so I'm guessing there are others who do as well), what could possibly function as my case for action? No power = no action, right? That seems almost like a self-sealing argument. Where does my source of normativity come from--that little, insistent "ought to" voice in the back of my head, urging me on to new and different lifestyles? Why doesn't she just shut the bloody hell up and let me enjoy my Playstation and my dryer?!<br />
<br />
Here's my answer. It comes from the lies we tell ourselves about our power. It comes from hanging onto beliefs that we still can effect the world if we work hard enough and are sincere enough, from drinking Margaret Mead's kool-aid. Assuming that the world isn't just "a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan," and there really are powerful people in it, I think those really powerful people would find this amusing, and are generally glad that there's something to keep people occupied who don't have televisions. But they're wrong to think so. They should be far more concerned about people who mistakenly think they have power.<br />
<br />
You see, here's the catch. I do not believe that we have the "power to change the world!" But at the same time, it is manifestly the case that the world does change, is changed, all the time at the hands of people that I think are powerless, like me--often those small groups of sincere people that Mead described. The difference is, the change that comes is not planned or purposeful. You see, the real source of our powerlessness, I think, is not that we have no power, but that we really don't have any control over that power. It's not the lack of power <i>per se</i>, the problem is with the "planning" or "purposefulness" end of things. I think there's a lot of reasons for this: a genuine lack of control over our lives, the usual human condition of not knowing the full scope of our actions and their effects, and so on. Be that as it may, we have power, but we don't have purposeful power. <br />
<br />
So we delude ourselves--what else could we do? And here is where my case for action comes in. As I said before, I do not believe we are existentially powerless, I think there's just too much evidence to the contrary. I suspect strongly that about 99.8356% of us will never do anything on purpose with our lives which results in the sorts of history-changing events that so many of us activists work towards, and that maybe 99.365% of us won't even manage to pull that off. But there is this slim percentage of people who will make these changes--<i>and they have absolutely no idea who they are or how they will do it</i>. They do not have control. They react to their environment. The changes that take effect are the billiard-ball reactions to a thousand other things which somehow careen themselves into events which make our world a better place (or worse, it works both ways). Maybe they can prepare a bit, maybe they can be well-read and have a bright imagination; all of that will help, I suspect. But at the end of the day, they react to their environment and the gods <i>*bing*</i> them with their wands of power-granting and the world morphs.<br />
<br />
So what? So why lie to ourselves about all of this? Because, as the quotation above says, I think that we have to believe the little lies in order for the big ones to become. We have to act to create the <i>preconditions</i> for the world-changing events to happen. We have to be the sorts of people who <i>will</i> change the world, even if we simply never will be. We have to continually create and maintain that culture, and bring other people into our delusion. Because someone, somewhere, will be the source of important and good things, even if the huge majority of us really, really, really never will be. We have to create the world that allows those people to exist, and that means we have to believe that maybe, just maybe, it will be us. But if we do not believe that we will be, if we do not act as if we will be, then the chances of the change we desire happening go to naught. We shrink the options, the possible times when great things could happen. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi" target="_blank">Mohandas Gandhis</a> turn into lawyers who never felt the compulsion to turn their back on their profession. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer" target="_blank">Dietrich Bonhoffer</a>s become quiet Lutheran ministers. Anyone who's watched enough Dr. Who should have no problems understanding this sort of reasoning, convoluted and wibbly-wobbly as it might be.<br />
<br />
So if you believe that people do have the power to change the world--on purpose--then go on your merry way! I'm not interested in dissuading you from this belief, because I think it's a fundamental part of what will in fact make our world a better place, even if I disagree on the particulars of how we'll get there. And if you don't? If you feel utterly helpless and hamstrung by our current situation, stripped of all motive for action, then think on this post. Maybe it will help, maybe not. But I think there is a case for action, purposeful-yet-pointless action, in the long span of human history, and even over the course of a human lifetime. Act like you will change the world, and somehow, someday, in ways we would never imagine or plan for, the world will change.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-46176747056931810402011-12-15T07:44:00.000-05:002011-12-15T07:44:03.625-05:00It's that time of year again....Time for the annual posting of my favorite holiday story! I hope you enjoy it! I'm not ashamed to say it makes me tear up every time I read it.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">by Margaret Morrison</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Five minutes before the Winter Solstice circle was scheduled to begin, my mother called. Since I’m the only one in our coven who doesn’t run on Pagan Standard Time, I took the call. Half the people hadn’t arrived, and those who had wouldn’t settle down to business for at least twenty minutes.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Merry Christmas, Frannie.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Hi, Mom. I don’t do Christmas.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Maybe not—but I do, so I’ll say it.” she told me in her sassy voice, kind of sweet and vinegary at the same time. “If I can respect your freedom of religion, you can respect my freedom of speech.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I grinned and rolled my eyes. “And the score is Mom - one, Fran - nothing. But I love you, anyway.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">People were bustling around in the next room, setting up the altar, decking the halls with what I considered excessive amounts of holly and ivy, and singing something like, “O Solstice Tree.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”It sounds like a...holiday party.” Mom said.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”We’re doing Winter Solstice tonight.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh. That’s sort of like your version of Christmas, right?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I wanted to snap back that Christmas was the Christian version of Solstice, but I held back. “We celebrate the return of the sun. It’s a lot quieter than Christmas. No shopping sprees, no pine needles and tinsel on the floor, and it doesn’t wipe me out. I remember how you had always worked yourself to a frazzle by December 26.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh honey, I loved doing all that stuff. I wouldn’t trade those memories for all the spare time in the world. I wish you and Jack would loosen up a little for the baby’s sake. When you were little, you enjoyed Easter bunnies and trick-or-treating and Christmas things. Since you’ve gotten into this Wicca religion, you sound a lot like Aunt Betty the year she was a Jehovah’s Witness.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I laughed nervously. “Yeah. How is Aunt Betty?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Fine. She’s into the Celestine Prophecy now, and she seems quite happy. Y’know,” she went on, “Aunt Betty always said the Jehovah’s Witnesses said those holiday things were pagan. So I don’t see why you’ve given them up.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Uh, they’ve been commercialized and polluted beyond recognition. We’re into very simple, quiet celebrations.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Well,” she said dubiously, “as long as you’re happy.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Sometimes long distance is better than being there, ‘cause your mother can’t give you the look that makes you agree with everything she says. Jack rescued me by interrupting.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Hi, Ma.” he called to the phone as he waved a beribboned sprig of mistletoe over my head. Then he kissed me, one of those quick noisy ones. I frowned at him.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Druidic tradition, Fran. Swear to Goddess.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Of course it is. Did the Druids use plastic berries?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Always. We’ll be needing you in about five minutes.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Okay. Gotta go, Mom. Love you.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">We had a nice, serene kind of Solstice Circle. No jingling bells or filked-out Christmas Carols. Soon after the last coven member left, Jack was ready to pack it in.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”The baby’s nestled all snug in her bed,” he said with a yawn, ”I think I’ll go settle in for a long winter’s nap.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I heaved a martyred sigh. He grinned unrepentantly, kissed me, called me a grinch, and went to bed. I stayed up and puttered around the house, trying to unwind. I sifted through the day’s mail, ditched the flyers urging us to purchase all the Seasonal Joy we could afford or charge. I opened the card from his parents. Another sermonette: a manger scene and a bible verse, with a handwritten note expressing his mother’s fervent hope that God’s love and Christmas spirit would fill our hearts in this blessed season. She means well, really. I amused myself by picking out every pagan element I could find in the card. When the mail had been sorted, I got up and started turning our ritual room back into a living room. As if the greeting card had carried a</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">virus, I found myself humming Christmas carols. I turned on the classic rock station, but they were playing that Lennon-Ono Christmas song. I switched stations. The weatherman assured me that there was only a twenty percent chance of snow. Then, by Loki, the deejay let Bruce Springsteen insult my ears crooning, “yah better watch out, yah better not pout.” I tried the Oldies station. Elvis lives, and he does Christmas songs. Okay, fine. We’ll do classical—no, we</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">won’t. They’re playing Handel’s Messiah. Maybe the community radio station would have something secular humanist. ”Ahora, escucharemos a Jose Feliciano canta ‘Feliz Navidad’.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I was getting annoyed. The radio doesn’t usually get this saturated with holiday mush until the twenty-fourth.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”This is too weird.” I said to the radio, “Cut that crap out.” The country station had some Kenny Rogers Christmas tune, the first rock station had gone from John and Yoko’s Christmas song to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Silent Night,” and the other rock station still had Springsteen reliving his childhood.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”—I’m tellin’ you why. SANTA Claus is comin’ to town!” he bellowed. I was about to pick out a nice secular CD when there was a knock at the door.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Now, it could have been a coven member who’d forgotten something. It could have been someone with car trouble. It could have been any number of things, but it certainly couldn’t have been a stout guy in a red suit—snowy beard, rosy cheeks, and all—backed by eight reindeer</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">and a sleigh. I blinked, wondered crazily where Rudolph was, and blinked again. There were nine reindeer. Our twenty-percent chance of snow had frosted the dead grass and was continuing to float down in fat flakes.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Hi, Frannie.” he said warmly, “I’ve missed you.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”I’m stone cold sober, and you don’t exist.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">He looked at me with a mixture of sorrow and compassion and sighed heavily. “That’s why I miss you, Frannie. Can I come in? We need to talk.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I couldn’t quite bring myself to slam the door on this vision, hallucination, or whatever. So I let him in, because that made more sense then letting all the cold air in while I argued with someone who wasn’t there. As he stepped in, a thought crossed my mind about various entities needing an invitation to get in houses. He flashed me a smile that would melt the polar caps.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Don’t you miss Christmas, Frannie?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”No.” I said flatly, “Apparently you don’t see me when I’m sleeping and waking these days. I haven’t been Christian for years.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh, now don’t let that stop you. We both know this holiday’s older than that. Yule trees and Saturnalia and here-comes-the-sun, doodoodendoodoo.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I raised an eyebrow at the Beatles reference, then gave him my standard sermonette on the appropriation and adulteration that made Christmas no longer a Pagan holiday. I had done my homework. I listed centuries, I named names—St. Nicholas among them. “In the twentieth century version,” I assured him, “Christmas is two parts crass commercialism mixed with one part blind faith in a religion I rejected years ago.” I gave him my best lines, the ones that had convinced my coven to abstain from Christmasy cliches. My hallucination sat in Jack’s favorite chair, nodding patiently at me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”And you,” I added nastily, “come here talking about ancient customs when you—in your current form—were invented in the nineteenth century by, um...Clement C. Moore.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">He laughed, a rolling, belly-deep chuckle unlike any department-store Santa I’d ever heard. “Of course I change my form now and then to suit fashion. Don’t you? And does that stop you from being yourself?” He said, and asked me if I remembered Real Magic, by Isaac Bonewits.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I gaped at him for a moment, then caught myself. “This is like ‘Labyrinth’, right? I’m having a dream that pretends to be real, but is only made from pieces of things in my memory. You don’t look a thing like David Bowie.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Bonewits has this Switchboard Theory.” Santa went on amiably, “The energy you put into your beliefs influences the real existence of the archetypal—oh, let me put it simpler: ‘in the beginning, Man created God’. Ian Anderson.” He lit a long-stemmed pipe. The tobacco had a mild and somehow Christmasy smell, and every puff sent up a wreath of smoke. “I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than Bonewits tells it, but that’s close enough for mortals. Are you with</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">me so far?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh, sure.” I lied as unconvincingly as possible. Santa sighed heavily. ”When’s the last time you left out milk and cookies for me?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”When I figured out my parents were eating them.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Frannie, Frannie. Remember pinda balls, from Hinduism?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Rice balls left as offerings for ancestors and gods.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Do Hindus really believe that the ancestors and gods eat pinda balls?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”All right, y’got me there. They say that spirits consume the spiritual essence, then mortals can have what’s left.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Mm-hm.” Santa smiled at me compassionately through his snowy beard.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I rallied quickly. “What about the toys? I know for a fact they aren’t made by you and a bunch of non-union elves.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh, that’s quite true. Manufacturing physical objects out of magical energy is terribly expensive and breaks several laws of Nature—She only allows us to do that on special occasions. It certainly couldn’t be done globally and annually. Now, the missus and the elves and I really do have a shop at the North Pole. Not the sort of thing the Air Force would ever find. What we make up there is what makes this time a holiday, no matter what religion it’s called.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Don’t tell me,” I said, rolling my eyes, “you make the sun come back.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh my, no. The solar cycle stuff, the Reason For The Season, isn’t my department. My part is making it a holiday. We make a mild, non-addictive psychedelic thing called Christmas spirit. Try some.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">He dipped his fingers in a pocket and tossed red-gold-green-silver glitter at me. I could have ducked. I don’t know why I didn’t.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">It smelled like snow, and pine needles, and cedar chips in the fireplace. It smelled like fruitcake, like roast turkey, like that foamy white stuff you spray on the window with stencils. It felt like</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">a crisp wind, Grandma’s hugs, fuzzy new mittens, pine needles scrunching under my slippers. I saw twinkly lights, mistletoe in the doorway, smiling faces from years gone by. Several Christmas carols played almost simultaneously in a kind of medley.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I fought my way back to my living room and glared sternly at the hallucination in Jack’s chair.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Fun stuff. Does the DEA know about this?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Oh, Frannie. Why are you such a hard case? I told you it’s non-addictive and has no harmful side effects. Would Santa Claus lie to you?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I opened my mouth and closed it again. We looked at each other a while.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Can I have some more of that glittery stuff?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Mmmm. I think you need something stronger. Try a sugarplum.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I tasted rum ball. Peppermint. Those hard candies with the picture all the way through. Mama’s favorite fudge. A chorus line of Christmas candies danced through my mouth. The Swedish Angel Chimes, run on candle power, say tingatingatingating. Mama, with a funny smile, promised to give Santa my letter. Greeting cards taped on the refrigerator door. We rode through the tree farm on a straw-filled trailer pulled by a red and green tractor, looking for a perfect pine.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">It was so big, Daddy had to cut a bit off so the star wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. Lights, ornaments, tinsel. Daddy lifted me up to the mantle to hang my stocking. My dolls stayed up to see Santa Claus, and in the morning they all had new clothes. Grandma carried in a platter with the world’s biggest turkey, and I got the drumstick. Joey’s Christmas puppy chased my Christmas kitten up the tree and it would have fallen over but Daddy held it while Mama got the kitten out. Daddy said every bad word there was but he kept laughing anyway. I sneaked my favorite plastic horse into the nativity scene, between the camels and the donkey.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I came back to reality slowly, with a silly smile on my face and a tickly feeling behind my eyes like they wanted to cry. The phrase ”visions of sugarplums” took on a whole new meaning.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”How long has it been,” Santa asked, “since you played with a nativity set?-“</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”But it symbolizes—“</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”The winter-born king. The sacred Mother and her sun-child. Got a problem with that? You could redecorate it with pentagrams if you like, they’ll look fine. As for the Christianization, I’ve heard who you invoke at Imbolc.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”But Bridgid was a Goddess for centuries before the Catholic Church-oh.” I crossed my arms and tried to glare at him, but failed. “You’re a sneaky old elf, y’know?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”The term is ‘jolly old elf.’ Care for another sugarplum?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I did.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I tasted gingerbread. My first nip of eggnog the way the grown-ups drink it. Fresh sugar cookies, shaped like trees and decked with colored frosting. Dad had been laid off, but we managed a lot of cheer. They told us Christmas would be “slim pickings.” Joey and I smiled bravely when Mama brought home that spindly spruce. We loaded down our “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree” with every light and ornament it could hold. Popcorn and cranberry strings for the outdoor trees.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Mistletoe in the hall: plastic mistletoe, real kisses. Joey and I snipped and glued and stitched and painted treasures to give as presents. We agonized over our “Santa” letters...by now we knew where the goodies came from, and we tried to compromise between what we longed for and what we thought they could afford. Every day we hoped the factory would reopen. When Joey’s dog ate my mitten, I wasn’t brave. I knew that meant I’d get mittens for Christmas, and one less</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">toy. I cried. On December twenty-fifth we opened our presents ve-ery slo-wly, drawing out the experience. We made a show of cheer over our socks and shirts and meager haul of toys. I got red mittens. We could tell Mama and Daddy were proud of us for being so brave, because they</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">were grinning like crazy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Go out to the garage for apples.” Mama told us, “We’ll have apple pancakes.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">I don’t remember having the pancakes. There was a dollhouse in the garage. No mass-produced aluminum thing but a homemade plywood dollhouse with wall-papered walls and real curtains and thread-spool chairs. My dolls were inside, with newly sewn clothes. Joey was on his knees in front of a plywood barn with hay in the loft. His old farm implements had new paint. Our plastic animals were corralled in popsicle stick fences. The garage smelled like apples and hay, the</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">cement was bone-chilling under my slippers, and I was crying.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">My knees were drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped around them. My chest felt tight, like ice cracking in sunshine. Santa offered me a huge white handkerchief. When all the ice in my chest had melted, he cleared his throat. He was pretty misty-eyed, too.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Want to come sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”You’ve already given it to me.” But I sat on his lap anyway, and kissed his rosy cheek until he did his famous laugh.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”I’d better go now, Frannie. I have other stops to make, and you have work to do.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Right. I’d better pop the corn tonight, it strings best when it’s stale.” I let him out the door. The reindeer were pawing impatiently at the moon-kissed new-fallen snow. I’d swear Rudolph winked at me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Don’t forget the milk and cookies.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Right. Uh, December twenty-fourth, or Solstice, or what?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">He shrugged. “Whatever night you expect me, I’ll be there. Eh, don’t wait up. Visits like this are tightly rationed. Laws of Nature, y’know, and She’s strict with them.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Gotcha. Thanks, Santa.” I kissed his cheek again. “Happy Holidays.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">The phrase had a nice, non-denominational ring to it. I thought I’d call my parents and in-laws soon and try it out on them. Santa laid his finger aside of his nose and nodded.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">”Blessed be, Frannie.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">The sleigh soared up, and Santa really did exclaim something. It sounded like old German. Smart-aleck elf. When I closed the door, the radio was playing Jethro Tull’s “Solstice Bells.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">HAPPY HOLIDAYS</span>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-86299875587846559702011-11-21T10:56:00.000-05:002011-11-21T10:56:53.505-05:00Pie Crust ConfidentialThis was actually a comment on Sharon Astyk's post "<a href="http://sharonastyk.com/2011/11/21/the-pie-crust-chronicles/" target="_blank">Pie Crust Chronicles</a>". I claim that I only posted it because I love her, and while this is true, I love all of you as well! No one should have to suffer through difficult crusts when there are tricks to be had. So here you go, with a sincere hope for a happy thanksgiving with you and your family & friends:<br />
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Only because I love you, I will pass along my very best secret weapon for pie crust making--vodka. No, not as in "drink it until you don't notice how bad the crust is", but as in an ingredient. I actually got this from Cook's Illustrated (who certainly can err on the side of fetishizing things). You see, the big tension with pie crusts is getting them to come out tender and flaky at the same time. Flaky isn't too hard (non-fully-incorporated butter is the key), but tender is tricky, because the water wants to combine with the flour to make gluten, which makes things tough. That's why all recipes say to add barely enough water to make it come together. But then it's hard to roll out, and you end up overworking the dough, which makes--heyhey--gluten! And you're right back to tough.<br />
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BUT, vodka doesn't make gluten when combined with flour! Woo hoo! So we keep some in our freezer (nice & cold), and substitute about half of the water for vodka in the recipe. You can then add a reasonable amount of liquid, making the dough more workable (and less stress-inducing), and gives the cook more wiggle room on adding water, while maintaining tenderness. The flavor bakes out, as does most of the alcohol (and really, we're talking 2-3 TBSP of vodka for an entire pie). Works a treat!Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-87981920335259073522011-11-11T16:09:00.002-05:002011-11-11T23:32:04.945-05:00Occupying: now with more (or less) focusOn my last post, I mentioned that I've been involved with the Occupy movement in our area. I got the following comment:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"Honestly, my only problem with the Occupy movement is a lack of focus. If they were a little more unified and had actual goals I think it'd be easier to understand. But I think the majority of the people out there are more lost than not."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">I've found this to be one of the most common criticisms of the Occupy movement, at least by those who are at all sympathetic to it. I find this criticism to be both fair, and deeply flawed at the same time. That I can think something like this means, among other things, that I am an incredibly frustrating person to argue with. =) But no matter. I also think that this criticism, and <i>why</i> it's flawed, is incredibly important, so I begged the commenter's patience for me to be able to respond in a full post, rather than just in a comment. Since you know how often I post here, and now I'm writing a <i>second</i> post in under two weeks, you must know that I think this is important!</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Okay, in essence I have three reasons to think that this criticism is flawed. They are all independent of each other--which is to say, I think that any one of them would function well on its own, even if the other two didn't pan out; or to put it a different way, they don't depend on each other. That said, I think they're all also consistent with each other--they don't cause each other problems. (And so ends today's brief lesson in critical thinking.) I do think there's something of a natural order to the responses, so I'm going to go through them one by one.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">1. Reports of our lack of focus have been greatly exaggerated.</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/the-silent-majority-comic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/the-silent-majority-comic.jpg" width="286" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">I've certainly seen any number of news reports, man-on-the-street remarks, newspaper editorials, etc., complaining that they can't even tell what we're protesting. Yet if you look at the signs, read the stories of the participants, see the posts on places like Facebook and others, I think it becomes clear that there is a basic nexus of issues. Almost all of the protests boil down to issues about the disproportionate sway of money over our government, the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the betrayal of our public by the government in collusion with the banks for the bailout. And really, even these issues all boil down to one broad point--crony capitalism of the worst sort. We are protesting our near-complete loss of power, and a system that reinforces this loss, concentrating the power into fewer and fewer hands. Really, that comic above sums it up pretty well.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">The problem here is that the real issues don't sum up well into 10 second sound bites, which is all that makes it onto the news anymore. The issues are complex, and the various slogans dreamed up by us placard-painters are only pointing to them, not stating them outright. So things look far less focused than they really are, and the media doesn't seem to be eager to correct this perception.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Having said that....</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">2. Gauge your strength before choosing your target.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">There is a very genuine sense in which OWS has <i>not</i> chosen its targets, or made its demands, and there is a specific rationale for this. Occupiers--all of us, not just those in NY--need to be able to get a clear assessment of the real strength of OWS before issuing any demands. If this movement proves to be very strong, as I hope it will (and I think it's headed that way), then we don't want to sell ourselves short by demanding--and maybe getting--some token concessions, essentially blowing the power it has with very little to show for it. On the other hand, OWS needs to be careful not to overshoot and make demands that it does not have sufficient power to fight for, which is another way to blow what power it has. It is very tricky to gauge this, and even the best process could screw it up. The process that the GAs of OWS have decided on will be to convene a congress next year (no, of course I can't remember when) to formalize a list of demands to which they expect the President and Congress to respond. The current threat of power (as of the plans right now) will be to form a third party if the current parties are unwilling to engage with OWS to achieve our goals. This could change between now and when the congress convenes, but this is the most updated version I've seen so far.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">But all of that pales before....</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">3. No demand is big enough.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">This reason comes from <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/152903/occupy_wall_street%3A_no_demand_is_big_enough/" target="_blank">this piece from Charles Eisenstein</a>, reposted variously across the interwebs, called "Occupy Wall Street: no demand is big enough". I can't possibly do justice to his eloquence, so I hope you'll follow the link and read it, but I will excerpt the core part for my purposes here:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 25px;">"Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for its lack of clear demands, but how do we issue demands, when what we really want is nothing less than the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible? No demand is big enough. We could make lists of demands for new public policies: tax the wealthy, raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, end the wars, regulate the banks. While we know these are positive steps, they aren't quite what motivated people to occupy Wall Street. What needs attention is something deeper: the power structures, ideologies, and institutions that prevented these steps from being taken years ago; indeed, that made these steps even necessary. Our leaders are beholden to impersonal forces, such as that of money, that compel them to do what no sane human being would choose. Disconnected from the actual effects of their policies, they live in a world of insincerity and pretense. It is time to bring a countervailing force to bear, and not just a force but a call. Our message is, "Stop pretending. You know what to do. Start doing it." Occupy Wall Street is about exposing the truth. We can trust its power. When a policeman pepper sprays helpless women, we don't beat him up and scare him into not doing it again; we show the world. Much worse than pepper spray is being perpetrated on our planet in service of money. Let us allow nothing happening on earth to be hidden."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 25px;">And finally, I'll throw in one fourth reason, which doesn't really stand alone, but is often operating in the background of my thoughts on this--at least now, people are starting to pay attention. You know, I've spent the past 5-7 years of my life trying to get people to think about the sustainability of our institutions, of our economy, of where this is all going; for the past two years, it's even been my <i>job</i> to do so. And I will claim with certainty, and some humility, that all of the work that I, and everyone who reads this blog, and everyone we read, and everyone who works on this in any capacity--all put together--have not had as much success getting people to pay attention to these issues as OWS has in only two months. I'm glad we've been doing all of this work for the past few years, because finally people are coming and starting to learn about it. I credit OWS with this. Sure people might have come around on their own, or all wandered over to us eventually, but how wonderful that it is finally starting to happen en masse. And I will stand on a cold streetcorner all winter, every chance I get, if I can keep that momentum going--to just get people to wake up.</span>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-68965422054102302782011-11-07T17:10:00.001-05:002011-11-07T17:23:44.124-05:00Let's define some terms, shall we?I've been AWOL again. Seriously, some of you should probably try to tie me down and chip me or something. But a thank you to PatriciaLynn for kicking my butt (gently, kindly). =)<br />
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What have I been doing? Mainly working, gardening, organizing a co-op, and Occupying. Funny how in my case, all of these are significantly interrelated. Makes for a good life--nice and consistent.<br />
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Being that I've spent a fair amount of my recent life involved with the Occupy movement, I've heard a lot of the pros and cons about what we're doing. Maybe as the days go on, I'll try to talk about them. But there's one criticism of Occupy Wall Street in particular that I am really, really worried about, because it demonstrates how far down our cultural lack of understanding of our whole financial system goes. The criticism goes something like this:<br />
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"It's not the financial institution's fault that the economy went ka-bloey a couple of years ago. People took out loans that they couldn't handle. If you take on a debt, it's your job to pay it off--it's not the fault of the banks that these people have no sense of personal responsibility. You should either pay off your debts, or you shouldn't take on the debt."<br />
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Now, there's obviously a lot going on here, and many ways to unpack this criticism. We could discuss fraudulent behavior on the part of both the borrowers and the banks, or the wonderful "exotic loan instruments" or the fact that even Dr. Nouriel Roubini (the nobel *ahem* prize winner in economics) said that he couldn't understand the loan documents for his own mortgage. We could also discuss people who bought way more than they could afford, and who just didn't care or think about the consequences, and the relative lack of personal responsibility on the part of all participants.<br />
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But that's not where I want to go here.<br />
<br />
The core problem I have with this argument--and I think that this problem is <i>desperately</i> important for everyone to understand--is that all of those loans made cannot be paid back without more debt. Lemme repeat that: all of those loans CANNOT be paid back without taking on more debt. This isn't some deep social critique about the psychology of a borrower or the American point of view, this is a simple mathematical truth. It is Not Possible for the current loans to be paid back, with interest, without more people taking on more debt, because there will not be enough money to do so without more debt.<br />
<br />
Huh?<br />
<br />
Um.... what does someone else going into debt have to do with me having enough money to pay my loans off?<br />
<br />
Everything.<br />
<br />
The monetary system we currently have is <i>designed</i> to ensure ever-increasing debt loads, and in the absence of this, ever-increasing defaults. Or, to put it a different way, the system we have now is custom-designed <i>to screw us all</i>. I am not exaggerating here. This isn't a matter of personal responsibility, it's a matter of structural impossibility. It's like demanding that someone draw a triangle that has 5 sides--it's not a criticism of the artist if she looks at you like you're a nutjob, it simply isn't a possibility.<br />
<br />
I might be able to do a decent job of explaining why this is the case--I've got a pretty good handle on it--but other people have done a better job than me, and in video form! Here's the shortest one I've seen so far, at ~20 minutes:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26229648?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/26229648">The Fractional Reserve System</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/soundmoney">Greg Stuessel</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
This is the core of the story, though hardly all of it (and it's a little heavy on the scare-tactics, which I find wholly unnecessary--the system itself is scary enough). For more context, check out the link to "Money as Debt" in the sidebar. And for a very comprehensive, complete understanding of how this fits into our overall economic, energy and environmental system, watch "The Crash Course" also in my link-list on the right.<br />
<br />
I wish I could make every person in America learn about this, somehow. So please, please--if you were with me I would actually be begging you, possibly on my knees--you care enough about the things I do that you read this blog. Take the next step--watch this video, it's only 20 minutes long. If you hate it, disagree with it, or whatever else, fine, you're out 20 minutes. But I'm betting you won't. I'm betting that quite to the contrary, if you didn't already know what was in this video, you will be very shocked indeed.<br />
<br />
Once you've watched this video, I invite you to think about a few things. (I'm stealing this from the Crash Course.) Did you know that for the first ~300 years of our country's history, from around 1660 to the mid-1900's, we had <i>no</i> inflation. None. Think about that. Imagine saving $1,000, putting it in a box and burying it, and then your great grandchildren digging up that box and having the same purchasing power that you had when you buried it. Inflation is not a law of nature, it's a construction of our current monetary policy, which is in fact a very recent invention (broadly from 1913, more literally from 1973). What does it mean that anything you save becomes worthless? What does that do to our livelihoods? Huh.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-4095392255968536292011-07-22T21:27:00.000-04:002011-07-22T21:27:43.181-04:00But honey, think of the property value...I've been thinking a lot about the recent "vegetable felon" cases. I'd be surprised if anyone reading this blog hasn't heard about them, but the ones I'm familiar with are the "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oak-Park-Hates-Veggies/184553881597878">Julie Bass in Oak Park, MI</a>" case, the "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/143703205679538">Compassion Farm</a>" case, and the "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/240508332635237?ref=ts">Terrorized by CEDA</a>" case. The cases are all a bit different, and go to different extremes (i.e., threat of three months in jail, six months in jail, and the property being seized by the city and demolished, respectively). But no matter how psycho the aims of each are (property demolition, srsly?), there is a common thread underlying all of them--no one wants to see your veggies.<br />
<br />
From here on out, I'm basically only going to talk about the Julie Bass case, partially because it's the one I'm the most familiar with, and partially because the other two are so off the deep end crazy that it will only obscure my ultimate point (yes, this post has been brought to you today by <i>an actual point</i>). So here's the basic scoop: the city dug up her front lawn to do some needed sewer/drainage repairs--cool, thanks for that. Then she needed to repair her front lawn because, well, it was big piles of dirt. The family decided to put in a vegetable garden (after, they thought, obtaining permission from the city). Ordinance violation citations followed, and now the City of Oak Park is the preferred internet pariah for their Stepford Neighborhood goals (apparently the Casey Anthony thing finally ran its course). <br />
<br />
Basically up to speed now? Good, because I'm going to say something very surprising, that I doubt you would expect to see from my fingertips--I sympathize with the surrounding homeowners. Please note that I did not say I <i>agree</i> with them, but I do have sympathy for them. How not? They're a product of their generations, their society, their upbringing. Look, I'm a trained philosopher. One of the real downsides to this is that I am pretty good at seeing both sides of an argument. It does a great deal of damage to otherwise wonderful rants of righteousness. (But woe betide the world when, after careful consideration and seeing both sides, I <i>still</i> have enough venom for one side to launch into a rant.) So unfortunately for me, I can understand the surrounding homeowner's positions. They bought their houses with certain expectations about the nature of the neighborhood, its look, and the probable nature of their property value. And they're concerned that the vegetable garden in the front yard will do harm to some or all of these.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, they're right. The vegetable garden probably <i>will</i> affect the character of the neighborhood, the look of the neighborhood, and will likely harm their property value. [NB: did you see what I did there? I only claim that one of those three will actually do harm. Sneaky am I.] And this brings me, circuitously, to my point. We now live in a society where <i>being forced to see food growing nearby is considered harmful</i>. I don't think anyone seriously believes that if those garden beds had been filled with flowers, that Julie Bass would currently be in the media, or would be enduring harassment by anyone. Besides, the citations specifically cite the vegetables as the problem. <br />
<br />
I was mulling this fact over in my head while working in my own garden tonight. And yes, it was hotter than Hades, let's just get that out of the way right now. What is so offensive about vegetables? I mean, there are many things that will lower a neighborhood's property value: the presence of crack houses, the installation of a waste dump, the house collapsing or being obviously derelict and falling apart, etc. I totally get why any reasonable neighborhood wouldn't want that sort of thing, and why there would be ordinances to assist in preventing or dealing with those situations. Is "seeing food growing" on the same list as "waste dump"? <br />
<br />
Yes, seeing food growing is indeed on the same list in a great number of neighborhoods in our country. And honestly, I think that this fact all by itself goes a long way towards explaining the mess we're in as a nation right now. What hope could a country have that can no longer endure the sight of food in its natural state? What is the worth of a citizenry that thinks so highly of itself that not only does each individual feel that he/she does not have to stoop to the level of <i>farmer</i>, but that person can actually bring the law to bear on anyone who forces them to have contact with <i>farming</i> or <i>gardening</i> or <i>food growing</i> in any form. You see, I might have some sympathy with those poor, benighted neighbors, but I've lost all sympathy for the culture that spawned them.<br />
<br />
At root, I think this is a class issue--most things in America are anymore. What is wrong with seeing food growing? The same thing that's wrong with seeing laundry hanging to dry, or chickens in the backyard, or any other of the myriad potential offenses that HOAs across America decry. It's not that it looks unseemly, it's that it looks poor. We associate growing food with poverty, and thank god we don't have to grow our own food anymore because now we're RICH! We can afford to make other people do it for us! (And pay them poorly, and make sure we never see them, and often bring in slave labor to make sure our prices are acceptable.) And we can afford machines to dry our clothes for us! And chickens?! O.M.G., those were from, like, the depression days or something. No one in their right mind would want to do anything like that again! Well, except for those folks who were too dumb to become investment bankers or interior designers. They can still do those things, but *ahem* Certainly Not Us.<br />
<br />
So I guess my take-home message here, for what it's worth, is that this isn't about an insane property inspector in Oak Park (although that doesn't help), or about an abusive city government, or a freedom fighter woman defending her land (god bless her for it, though). This is far more systemic than that. It's about a society that is so deeply, fundamentally broken to its core that it can no longer endure sight of the most basic things that got us out of the trees and made us human beings in the first place. We've become totally and utterly ungrounded as a nation and a society.<br />
<br />
So just imagine how hard its going to go when our economy finally does bite it.<br />
<br />
Have a happy weekend.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-7140521128686937342011-07-10T20:48:00.000-04:002011-07-10T20:48:49.874-04:00No flogging!HA!<br />
<br />
HAHAHAHAHAAAA!<br />
<br />
I got my whole list done--DONE, I SAY! And I was having a record-breaking crappy weekend. Crappy enough that today at church, various kind people approached me quietly to make sure everything was okay. Well, no, not a bit actually. But nothing is wrong that I'm at liberty to discuss (and yes, that includes here as well, sorry). And having that list of stuff to do hanging over my head did wonders for focusing the mind--sort of like the hangman's noose. It actually provided some respite for the tormenting thoughts I was otherwise having.<br />
<br />
So what did I accomplish? Let's review:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>temporary chook pen: done and done. It is the <i>definition</i> of the word "kludge," but that's where my DIY skills max out, so it's just as well. I'll try to get pics soon. The baby chicks are now happily installed in their new homes, protected from outside evils like raccoons, owls, and the adult hens eyeballing them through the chicken wire. The interior of the pen is a bit difficult to access--I did mention that it's a total kludge, right?--but otherwise, it's all good. And though it was designed to be temporary, I might keep it up as an isolation area, in case I have a sick chick, or a bully that needs to get taken down a peg or two. Of course, if I do, then my next weekend list will have to include "paint roof of temporary chook pen."</li>
<li>I made the new waterer with the chicken nipple, and gods alive, <i>they figured it out!</i> I ended up using the "put jam on the nipple to encourage them" method, which was just the trick. The babies now have fresh and <i>clean</i> water in an easy-to-refill setup. And the hens have taken notice since they've been outside. I think I'll make another one and hang it on the outside of the pen, near where the baby chick's one is, and see if the old hens can be taught any new tricks. (Wondering what the hell I'm talking about? <a href="http://avianaquamiser.com/diywaterers/?gclid=CM2qqJ2I-KkCFQZCgwod0FFjZQ">Click here</a>.)</li>
<li>I made a wheel of Wensleydale. I'm not sure how it will turn out, though. I might've been too rough with the curd during several of the milling steps, and it's also really quite hot in our house. I think the combination of these two factors might have created a "catastrophic butterfat loss" situation--it was leaking out everywhere. Ah well, we won't know for another 3 weeks when it comes out of its cave. My guess is that it'll be good, but very crumbly rather than smooth and creamy. Live and learn, right?</li>
<li>Garden paths: weed-whacked. And I totally deserved the flying object right in the eye, since I couldn't be bothered to take an additional 5-10 minutes tracking down my safety glasses. No harm done, but it was a good warning shot.</li>
<li>Blackberry brambles are as back under control as I'm likely to get them this year. And some of the blackberries are <i>neeeeaaarrrrllllyyyyy</i> ripe. Mmmm, blackberries...</li>
</ul><div>So I'm digging this whole "public accountability" thing--I got more done this weekend than I have in a long time. On the other hand, that's just about the maximum I can get done in one weekend, and I really didn't have any time to relax or enjoy myself. True, I do enjoy doing much of what was on my list, but a bit of time to kick back, read, spin some yarn, whathaveyou? Yeah, that didn't happen. Maybe I'll get some spinning done tonight. I've got some lovely suri alpaca roving gifted to me by my dear friend Dave, and I've been itching to get to it (and he's been needling me, too). Pretty soon I'll be getting my niece's adopted llama's fleece to process, which he'll be helping with, so I'd better clear this other roving out of the way first, right?</div><div><br />
</div><div>Right??</div>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-12966027748676859532011-07-07T21:09:00.000-04:002011-07-07T21:09:03.989-04:00This weekendOkay, here's the deal. I am going to very, very publicly proclaim Those Things What I Will Do This Weekend(tm). You, in turn, will publicly shame me until I actually accomplish at least half of what I list. No, you do not get to shame me until Monday. Yes, flogging is approved (but only with wet noodles). But I draw the line at being put in the stocks--how am I supposed to finish my list then?!<br />
<br />
So, here's the list:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Finish the temporary pen for the new chooks. (No, I'm neither British nor Australian, I'm just a snob and I like that bit of slang.)</li>
<li>Create a new water-feeder for the baby birds using the water nipples (damnit, <i>one</i> set of birds is gonna figure this thing out if it kills me).</li>
<li>Make a new wheel of cheese--my husband has selected Wensleydale (Hi Wallace!!!)<i>. </i>I shall be following the method <a href="http://www.cheeseofgavin.blogspot.com/"><i>a la Monsieur Gavin</i>, my new favorite cheese blog</a>. Okay, my only favorite cheese blog. But if there were more than one cheese blog out there, and even if lots of them were my favorites, I think that Gavin's would still be my most favorite.</li>
<li>Weed-whack the garden paths. Again. (Godsdamned crabgrass.)</li>
<li>Get my blackberry canes back under control.</li>
</ul><div>I pulled my first potato out of the ground today. Lunch tomorrow!</div><div><br />
</div><div>And hey, did I tell you guys that I've made my first Cheddar? It's true! At least, I really hope it's my first Cheddar. I guess we won't know until we actually try it. It might be my first, "Dear, I'm not sure this is Cheddar." (Sort of like "I can't believe it's not butter" but ... well ... not.) Right now it's in a little cooler in front of a fan, sitting on top of a plastic thingy of ice, developing a rind. I'm then going to vacuum seal it (unless my mom gets me cheese waxes for my birthday, in which case I'll wax it), and put it into *da da daDUM* The Cheese Cave. What's with the cooler? Well, it's like 85*F in our house right now, which is well and truly too warm to be letting a cheese sit out to develop a rind--it will start leaking oil everywhere. So I've tried to put it somewhere that it will stay at least in the mid-70's. And the cheese cave? What, do you think I did major excavation on my house last week? *snort* If you haven't figured out how much I suck at DIY yet, you haven't been around long. I scored a sweet little dorm fridge off of Craigslist for $30. I just plugged it in and set it at its warmest setting, and we'll see where that leaves us. Cheddars should age at ideal temps of around 50*-60*F, which I sorely doubt the fridge will achieve. I may put it on a timer and only run it for a few hours a day, see if that works. If I get both desperate <i>and</i> dedicated to cheesemaking, I may spring for the $75 external thermostat. And if I get dedicated to cheesemaking <i>and</i> my husband gets re-dedicated to beer & soda-making, we might spring for a full-sized fridge for our basement (which is also about 70*F). </div><div><br />
</div><div>Hm. There were a lot of "and"s running around that last paragraph. In italics, even.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I'm having a great deal of fun at work these days. We've got a great group of new interns who are all completely keen to learn whatever we have to teach them. We'll be doing farm field trips, breadmaking and cooking workshops, environmental philosophy seminars, spiritual direction meetings, and oh so much more! I'm completely psyched!</div><div><br />
</div><div>And, in my final story for the night, I'm reasonably sure I've been given approval from my boss to become our resident herbalist. SCORE.</div>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-15740198358389726792011-06-22T10:12:00.001-04:002011-06-22T10:15:24.617-04:00Our 10th Anniversary tripRecently, my parents graciously took our children to Walt Disney World. We decided that would be the perfect opportunity to go on our 10th Anniversary trip, even though it was a bit early (our anniversary is technically August 11th). We decided to go to Mexico City, and had an absolutely amazing time. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and if you ever want to go, I've got the perfect recommendation for your stay (Casa Comtesse!). <br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Below should be a link to some pics we took while there. We aren't crazy picture takers, so there aren't tons, but enough for us to keep our memories alive and to share them with others. I've captioned some of them, since I can't sit down with y'all and tell you what's in each photo. I hope you enjoy!<br />
</div><table style="width:194px;"><tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/morton.robyn/10thAnniversary?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-MInu1oPoALQ/TeKR0ouEZlE/AAAAAAAAAhk/hrb_pHSsgys/s160-c/10thAnniversary.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/morton.robyn/10thAnniversary?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">10th Anniversary</a></td></tr></table>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-66780439428135383472011-06-19T21:59:00.001-04:002011-06-19T23:07:36.138-04:00New chickensAs most of you know, I live on a pretty regular city street. You know, a double-lot, which is 60'x140' (yeah, I know, long & narrow). Lots of neighbors, who generally all love my chickens.<br />
<br />
Except for one neighbor, for whom I just didn't know one way or the other. One day a chicken got loose in their yard, which may have freaked them a bit (and totally fairly, I might add). I'm reasonably sure one of their dogs got loose and killed three of our chickens, but seriously do not know for sure and never made any accusations. So I was a bit in no-man's land with them, and they're right next door.<br />
<br />
That is, until about 3 weeks ago, when they showed up in our yard with their own 9 baby chicks. Okay, I guess that answers that question.<br />
<br />
BUT, they were the classic Rural King suckers. The lady got lured in by the adorable cheep-cheeps on chick day and bought 9, with no other obvious long term plan, like having a feeder or living situation or anything. So they offered some to us, and I said I would take up to three of them once they were a bit bigger.<br />
<br />
Now they're a bit bigger.<br />
<br />
So here are some of the things I'm gonna need to do, or be aware of, soon:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Get back out the old brooder, to keep them in isolation for awhile</li>
<li>Wait until they're big enough to be able to hold their own in the main chicken yard</li>
<li>Construct a makeshift pen in the chicken yard, probably right off the side of the current run (that's my thinking anyway. Probably a metal post & chicken wire affair, with a "whatever I can find that will work" roof system.</li>
<li>Spend roughly the next two months letting the chickens either grow or get acclimated to the other chicken.</li>
<li>Wait with baited breath to see if I got myself any (any at all) roosters. If so, I'll have a few options:</li>
<ul><li>See if my other neighbors were serious about preferring the sound of a rooster crow to an alarm clock.</li>
<li>Bite the bullet and learn how to butcher (um.. but where?!)</li>
<li>If I have more than one rooster.... sh*t, that's bad luck.</li>
</ul></ul><div>Honestly, I'd rather like one rooster. I think the girls would be happier, and they're good defense for them (damnit, I hate how unliberated hens are!). But I have serious doubts about my neighbors truly enjoying the call of the wild at the crack of dawn. I understand that roosters aren't any louder than dogs, but no one likes to hear dogs barking at the crack of dawn, either. We'll see how this plays out. </div>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-28893462762856911622011-06-16T21:50:00.000-04:002011-06-16T21:50:35.762-04:00The Seasons of the Year<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(This is a post I wrote for work and decided I liked enough to post here. Yes, I'm double-dipping.)</span><br />
<br />
We were all taught the seasons of the year when we were kids—winter, spring, summer, and fall. And we were taught these seasons regardless of where we lived, or if we really experienced those seasons. Whether you lived in Missouri, Alaska, Nevada, or Florida, everyone cut out tulips in May (even if there is still snow on the ground), and drew pictures of snowmen in December (even if your orange tree is still producing). <br />
<br />
Most of the time, we don't think much about this, except as a joke. When I lived in northeastern Ohio, we joked that we had four yearly seasons—"not yet winter, winter, still winter, and road repair." Personally, I found that this captured the movement of the year far more accurately, while also reminding you that it didn't matter what time of year it was, you were still going to have problems on the roads. <br />
<br />
Gardeners in particular operate on a very different set of seasons. We understand that non-gardeners don't really get this—it's more like a secret gardener-language. We invoke completely different seasons that the Standard Four, like "last frost date," "as soon as ground can be worked," "midsummer," and "mulching". In the Midwest, at least, we have as many different gardening seasons as the Inuit have words for snow. <br />
<br />
I've been working on cataloging (as best I can) the various seasons we experience here at WVC, and I thought I'd share my observations with you. I think, when I started this list, I really meant for it to be helpful; I'm no longer sure that's the case, but I do hope it's still entertaining. Enjoy! <br />
<br />
The Seasons (starting in calendar month January)<br />
<br />
<ul><li>"Seed catalog" season: technically this season opens in mid-December, for the particularly astute seed purveyors who realize that gardeners are now seriously garden-deprived and increasingly irrational, making the Christmas gift-giving season a potential goldmine for them </li>
<li>"What do you mean you haven't gotten your first shipment of potting mix in yet?" season: roughly late-January to mid-February in our area. Later in the year we realize that, in general, this is really saving us from ourselves since it is still way to early to start those tomatoes </li>
<li>"No, really, it's still frozen" season: what the gardener's spouse/significant other says to us when they see us out there, jumping up and down on the spading fork in some desperate attempt to turn the soil. Or, February. </li>
<li>"Favorite nursery reopens for the season!" season: better than Christmas. The smarter of the gardeners open savings accounts in October to offset the damage done this weekend. Mid-March.</li>
<li>"*Gasp* It's so beautiful!" season: when you finally do manage to turn that first spading fork of soil. 5-seconds in late March. </li>
<li>"*Sigh* It's so wet" season: immediately follows "It's beautiful!" </li>
<li>"Planting" season: runs roughly from late-March until June, and depends on a couple of variables, like rain, dryness, late frosts, rain, swampiness, work interference, rain, slow seedlings, rain, and rain. </li>
<li>"Weeding" season: from mid-June until the day you die. </li>
<li>"Canning & preserving" season: runs concurrently with "weeding" </li>
<li>Midsummer, or "Fall seedling starts" </li>
<li>"You threw away those old windows?! Those were for the coldframes I was finally going to build!" season: self-explanatory </li>
<li>"No, I don't rake leaves, they're mulch for the garden" season: October </li>
<li>"Next year I'll do everything right" season: November. </li>
<li>"Early seed catalog" season: December. </li>
</ul><br />
<br />
And then we begin the cycle again....Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-59187338315489326332011-05-09T14:49:00.000-04:002011-05-09T14:49:20.412-04:00The SOTGAnd now, folks, it's time for the annual State Of The Garden (SOTG) Report.<br />
<br />
The State Of The Garden is: "good"<br />
<br />
Actually, so far the garden is going well this year. Last year was, as you may know, a pretty unqualified disaster. Actually, wait, you probably don't know. Why don't you know? Because at some point (I'd call it late July) I just stopped talking about it altogether. But it was bad. I got completely overwhelmed by my new full-time job and a garden that was really conceived of and planned like a full-time garden. I did do some things to try and mitigate the problems, like using plastic mulch, but eventually, it just got entirely out of control.<br />
<br />
Now, here's the interesting thing--thanks to the plastic mulch I used, the <i>beds themselves</i> were pretty okay. Those mainly suffered from poor planning, not planting on time, etc. No, the disaster areas were the paths in between the beds. Chocked full of crabgrass--absolutely awful. And I had no practical way to get rid of it. Our mower doesn't fit between the beds (yes, maybe that's bad planning, but nothing for it now), and you can't weed it out, since it's completely packed down by walking. Finally, at the end of the season, I found a used electric weed-wacker for $10 at a garage sale and I completely <i>went to town</i> on those suckers. And in fact, I think I obliterated a lot of them--cool stuff. They don't seem to be coming back this year, I think in part because the whacked weeds formed a pretty solid mat, partially because I whacked them right down to the ground, and partially because the chickens ate everything that was making an attempt.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.growveg.com/garden-plan.aspx?p=96729">Here's my garden</a> in some detail, with design layout.<br />
<br />
Here's what's gone on so far:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>We freecycled our kid's old swingset (they hadn't used it for at least two years), and reclaimed that area for two new 2'x10' strawberry beds.</li>
<li>I interplanted the remaining strawberry crowns into the asparagus bed. Now we have two 15' rows of asparagus that are 5' apart, with maybe 15 strawberry plants running down the center. No, I haven't figured out how I'm going to harvest the strawberries, why do you ask?</li>
<li>Several of my new grape vines got kacked by hail recently, so my vines are now lopsided. I'll have grapes growing on canes on one side, and a new vine growing on the other. Ah well, <i>c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?</i></li>
<li>Asparagus beds and strawberry beds have all been thoroughly strawed.</li>
<li>Potatoes (white and yukon) are up in two 4'x4' beds. I've mulched in one of the beds, and I'll be putting down straw in the other, to see which works better. I've also aggressively covered the plants with netting, in case the chickens try to get at them. Potato plants are toxic, you know.</li>
<li>Just planted my sweet potato slips, which have all taken nicely. Sweet potato greens are <i>not</i> toxic, but I still don't want my chickens eating them (they're mine, damnit).</li>
<li>Pole beans are planted around, well, poles (duh.), and I've got wire mesh 1.5' high surrounding each pole, with branches stuck inside, as chicken defense, making the whole thing look like some kind of twisted Guantanamo for beans.</li>
<li>MY ONIONS ARE DOING WELL! Yes, that does deserve to be in yellcaps, cause I'm freaked out. I've been trying to grow onions for five years now, and this is the first time it looks like I might actually have some success. I started them from seed on Feb. 15 (which was later than I'd wanted), got them into the ground at the end of March, and have been fertilizing pretty aggressively. So far I've got a lot of nice, fat greens coming up. We'll see if they bulb properly now. Garlic is doing well, too.</li>
<li>Lettuces have all recovered from a hideous chicken attack (look back a few posts for more on that one). </li>
<li>Broccoli is doing well, but no sprouts yet; cabbages are limping along; carrots & beets similarly.</li>
<li>Pepper plants are in self-watering containers on our back patio.</li>
<li>Many new herbs in the ground--we'll see if I can keep them alive.</li>
</ul><div>A lot of my gardening methodology has changed this year. First, I've really changed my goals--I have a lot of potatoes & onions in the garden, which are comparatively low maintenance. My family just doesn't eat many tomatoes or peppers, and they're PITAs to grow, so why bother? That's what the market is for. The other main thing I've been learning is Extreme Chicken Defense. So far, the chickens have managed to get into and somehow harass nearly every plant I have, but in almost all cases it was because I'd not properly secured some covering or other. A lot of the garden I've just blocked from the chickens entirely, but some of it they still have access to, so we'll see how it goes.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I am still planning on having a 10' pool for the kids (and me) this year. We don't use our A/C, and you really would not believe how nice a pool is to jump into. It cools you right off, and really it keeps you cool even once you're out. This does take a big chunk of space out of the middle of the garden, but I think it's worth it, and we just don't have a better place for it.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I have lots of other things to update, but I'll go ahead and post this for now, otherwise even <i>I</i> wouldn't make it all the way to the end of the post, and I wrote it.</div>Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-57599155504578770792011-04-27T22:37:00.000-04:002011-04-27T22:37:15.510-04:00Hmmm, not good.No, seriously, this could be a bad bad thing:<br />
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<div id="folia_badge" class="gardener-Robyn_M"> <a id="folia_badge_loader" href="http://myfolia.com" class="loader">Loading Folia gardener badge...</a><br />
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But being bad sometimes feels so <i>goooood</i>. It's Ravelry, only for gardening.<br />
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Or, to put it more bluntly, it's crack for Robyn.<br />
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Oh lord.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-23685424185853382562011-04-25T14:40:00.000-04:002011-04-25T14:40:17.352-04:00My 15 minutes of fame...Or really, more like 2:33 of fame, but whatev.<br />
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So, have you always wanted to meet me? Well, here's your chance:<br />
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<a href="http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=183717">http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=183717</a><br />
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Yup, thas me (no, not the well-coiffed woman at the desk, the scruffy looking one walking around her house). My family was recently featured on a local station for Earth Day for our sustainable lifestyle. They wondered who would be a good representative for this topic, and came up with me. Seriously, I have no idea how they did that, either. That's not false modesty--I think I'm a halfway decent choice, I just have no idea how they arrived at my name.<br />
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At any rate, I was relieved to see that the piece was not a hatchet-job, as I have seen happen to others. In reality, I was never really worried that our local news station would do something like that to me, but I had seen national media do some truly awful things to people that I respect and care about, so I was a bit hesitant. Also... um... I was more than a little worried that they'd get to my house and go "I thought you would be all hardcore, candlelight and a campfire in the living room, and instead I see your son playing the Wii!" But they were kind to me and my family, and somehow even made our house look nicer than I think it really does on the outside (did they photoshop out the peeling paint?! Thanks!).<br />
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They did leave out some of what I felt were *ahem* some of my better moments *snort*, but they did leave in the bit about cooking, which was good, since I think that's really important. <br />
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And can I just say that I've never gotten so much gardening work done this early in the season, as when I was panicking about a fricking <em>camera crew in my house and garden</em>. Man, that's motivation for you. Brian had the house spotless, too. And then--this is exactly the way things happen, too--not 15 mintues before the cameraman is due to arrive, I peek outside and my chickens have gotten under the netting of the lettuce bed and <em>utterly demolished it</em>. Four chickens scratching away like lunatics in a 4'x4' bed. AAARRRRGH! It was a beautiful bed, too. And it's making a solid recovery, but not within the 15 mintues before WTWO showed up. They also filmed and showed a lot of the recently-planted strawberry beds, which look essentially like two big, 10' long walled-in piles of mud. Ah well. Probably the nicest looking thing in the garden at that point, to tell the truth.<br />
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But anyway... so there I am. Hi everyone!Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-38936015323538540392011-03-13T19:48:00.000-04:002011-03-13T19:48:06.676-04:00Chickens + compost = WOW(Fair warning, this post comes to you via my iPad, and I'm not a thumb-typing prodigy, so I'm vagely concerned that this will end up on "damn you autocorrect!". But my husband has our main computer, and besides, I'm outside...)<br />
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I redid the fencing for the chickens yesterday, giving them access to the compost pile for the first time. Oh, what I wouldn't give for before and after shots! When they started in on it, the pile was essentially a fermenting mass of ick (that through some miracle, didn't smell). But they joyously scratched, pecked, scraped, and just generally partied down right through that pile. When I returned, the pile was a lovely, crumbly, black humus--almost exactly what the textbooks tell you it should look like. True story, today I put some of this gorgeousness out on one of my garden beds, and I <i>didn't even screen it</i>. (Mostly due to laziness and the fact that I don't own a screen, but still, it worked.) I actually had to put the fourth wall slats back on, since the pile was now such loose crumbliness that it wasn't staying put anymore. This, incidentally, required that I put the top brace back on to hold the sides together, which makes a lovely perch. The compost pile is now my chicken's most very favorite place to be.<br />
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I've got a day off tomorrow, since I've been working 10-14 hour days for the past week with a group of Spring Break Service Trip kids, which was <i>awesome</i>. I probably got too attached to them, given that I knew they'd only be here for a week, but ah well. They did such a great job and worked so hard. I think they genuinely absorbed our message of a faith-practice focused on care of creation.<br />
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Oh, and along those lines, we're also running a pilot version of <a href="http://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/lent45/">Lent 4.5</a> both at my work and at my church (Unitarian Universalist--yeah, tell me you're surprised). If you have any inclination to a faith-based ecological perspective, I heartily encourage you to look into this program, its vey good stuff.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-10692865434151644612011-03-12T12:22:00.000-05:002011-03-12T12:22:34.403-05:00MWF seeking advice from Blogger populationI have a reasonably well-established garden in the back of our little lot. (This is not to say that I will not utterly upend that at some point, but for now, this is what I'm working with.) I've got the beds pretty well under control, vis-a-vis weeds, but the <i>paths</i>. Oh my lord the <i>paths</i>. Nothing I do seems to get rid of the crabgrass in the paths, which leads to, well, a messy-looking garden (and it does re-seed the beds, of course). I keep seeing all of these gorgeous pictures of weed-free organic garden paths, and I'm dumbstruck. <br />
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Some prior attempts:<br />
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<ul><li>Just walking all over it (TOTAL fail)</li>
<li>mulch (partial fail)</li>
<li>newspaper and mulch (pretty good, but weeds grew back)</li>
<li>landscaping fabric (worked, but only did a small portion)</li>
</ul>My thinking this year will be to let the chickens at it, keeping the beds themselves covered in bird netting to protect the plants. I tend to not get ginormic projects like landscape-fabric-ing then mulching the entire garden, but maybe that's the direction I should go in. <br />
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At any rate, I am actively seeking advice from y'all. What do you do/have you done that works? Or doesn't work (so that I don't waste my time)? If you have suggestions for my herb garden, that would be nice, too. There, I'm actually thinking about doing two layers of cardboard, landscape fabric over that, then pea gravel (I tried one layer of cardboard and mulch, and the *@$#^$ star of bethlehem grew STRAIGHT THROUGH IT).Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-47125779803448697192011-03-07T23:13:00.000-05:002011-03-07T23:13:08.248-05:00Under the wireHa! Got my urban homesteading post in just under the wire for the Monday Day of Action. Score.<br />
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Today, my post will be short, but poignant.<br />
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FIRST EGG!<br />
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(I took pictures, but they were all blurry & awful. Don't know <i>what</i> has happened to my macro function. Grrr.)Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-34600535852831548212011-02-27T13:34:00.000-05:002011-02-27T13:34:46.338-05:00A brief word from your sponsor...I WON THE RAINBARREL! HOLY SH*TCAKES!<br />
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No, seriously, I'm freaking out over here. Rainbarrelrainbarrelrainbarrelrainbarrel!<br />
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Wooooooo!<br />
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Go <a href="http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2011/02/roll-out-rain-barrel-giveaway.html">HERE</a> for to see it! So pretty... my precious....<br />
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Have many blog posts floating around in my head (if you're a blogger, you know exactly what I'm talking about). I'm hoping to say some interesting things soon about education, and raised beds, and french fries. Stay tuned!Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-23205797002690898192011-02-21T07:00:00.007-05:002011-02-21T07:00:06.574-05:00I am an urban homesteader!<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CbiJ2eiRCCs/TWHWcTdvtMI/AAAAAAAAAI0/TrlrWfxTyXE/s1600/no_R.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img align="left" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CbiJ2eiRCCs/TWHWcTdvtMI/AAAAAAAAAI0/TrlrWfxTyXE/s1600/no_R.jpg" /></a></div>[If you're reading this post on Feb. 21, 2011 (or thereabouts), and you do not <i>instantly</i> know why I'd be posting this today, then please <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Take-Back-Urban-Home-steadings/167527713295518?ref=ts#%21/pages/Take-Back-Urban-Home-steadings/167527713295518?sk=info">click here to go to the Facebook page "Take Back Urban Homesteading"</a> and see the (perfectly absurd) backstory.]<br />
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I am an urban homesteader. Er. Well, sorta anyway. Um. Okay, so where I live is only urban in the sense that the USDA does not consider it rural (<i>barely</i>, too--in fact, I haven't seen the recent census numbers yet--mayhaps we're rural now!). We live on a city street, though, with a double-sized lot, which gives us around 60' x 140' total footprint. On that footprint is our house, a detached garage, and a fairly sizable concrete patio/driveway in back (hey, it wasn't our fault, it was like that when we bought it). So do the math yourself if you want to, but I don't think we even manage to crack the 1/10th of an acre. So I'm calling it urban; or at least, sure as hell isn't 40 acres and a mule!<br />
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And we homestead. Of course, most people wouldn't consider what we do homesteading, but I think that's the beauty of urban homesteading. It bends the concepts of homesteading into a huge panoply of shapes, and really demonstrates the inherent diversity in such a term.<br />
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The core of homesteading, to my way of thinking, is self-reliance. So are we self-sufficient? Hell no. Are we aiming for self-sufficiency? Not on a bet. In fact, I don't even think it's a particularly desirable goal. Urban homesteading forces one to confront the simple fact that, unless you live on a piece of land that has enough room for <i>all</i> of your food crops, food animals, a salt mine, some iron ore & a forge, maybe a way to create baking soda, etcetera, you are not, were not, and will never be truly self-sufficient.<br />
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Self-reliance simply <i>must</i> mean something other than "can meet all of one's (or one's family's) needs without external aid", and by extension, homesteading--particularly urban homesteading--must mean something other than this, too. Given that we will probably never even meet our family's food needs on our own land (much less things like medical tape, cookware and shoes), what distinguishes what my family does from anyone else who gardens and, perhaps, keeps some animals for food?<br />
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I think the core for urban homesteaders is not the method one uses, or the end results (i.e., how many animals you've crammed into your life, how many pounds of produce came out of your 4'square bed, how solar-heated your water is, etc.). Rather, it is the emphasis--the <i>whys</i> of what you do. Why garden? One perfectly reasonable response is "Because I enjoy it." Another is "Because I want to make sure we have organic vegetables." A third is "Because it tastes better when it's fresh from the garden." Those are great answers! But those aren't urban homesteader's answers (or at least, they will be only part of the urban homesteaders answers). I think an urban homesteader's answer looks a little more like this: "Because I want to use the land/space I have in productive ways that help support myself/my family." Obviously there are lots of ways one could express this, but the core (to me) is that we are moving ourselves back into the role of primary food provider and householder.<br />
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Years ago most people, and especially ones in the cities, ceded the various roles of householder to others--farmers and food manufacturers and grocery stores and housekeepers and accountants and electric companies and so on. We stopped being the ones who grew our food (any of it), or cleaned our houses. We relied exclusively on various power companies for heat and light, and trucks to bring us nearly everything we want. We stopped being the ones who did and made, and started being the ones who paid others to do those things for us. (And, often, started being the ones who did these things for others so that we could be paid so that we could pay others to do those things for us. It's like the frickin' capitalist circle of life.) Urban homesteading is the conscious act of taking some of these roles back. Maybe not all of it, and often not even half of it, but that isn't the essential feature of urban homesteading. It's saying "I can play a role in being a primary provider for my family, even if it's just some hot peppers and tomatoes from my garden boxes on the patio, and line-drying our clothes." We are moving ourselves into the role of producer.<br />
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Of course, this also makes one very aware of one's dependence on others. I think urban homesteaders have an even higher awareness of our dependence on others than those who <i>really do</i> have a higher dependence on others--who wouldn't know how to grow a tomato if their lives depended on it and who have no idea what to do when their dryer punks out on them. And we are aware that this dependence is necessary, and probably desirable. Working together in community to maximize one's own self-reliance (as it were) is part of the core methodology of urban homesteading, and that's convenient, because we urban homesteaders have a lot of community around us to deal with. Why cut oneself off, trying to do practically everything by oneself? Maybe you live on land that can't grow tomatoes for <i>shit</i> (ahem) but you have a lovely flock of laying hens. You have a neighbor with prize-winning tomatoes but no eggs. There's an obvious solution here. And so you rely on each other, and build ties, and now <i>both</i> of you are more secure due to this relationship. That's nice, and you aren't wasting 50 square feet trying to grow tomatoes for yourself on your limited ground.<br />
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Most people regard urban homesteading--if they regard it at all--as either an eccentricity or an oddity. Some probably think it's deviant. But anyone who's here has probably already started to realize that those attitudes are shifting. So think about your own role in how you manage your household and family. Can you move yourself into the role of producer, even just a little? Can you do it consciously? Can you commit to producing some of the food you eat, saving some of the energy you use, strengthening some of the community you live in, with an aim of using your land/space in productive ways? Then claim the title proudly, and tell others. It's hard to think of an activity as deviant or eccentric when you are friends with the person who does it. (Okay, in my case this isn't strictly speaking true.) Put a face on it for others, let them see what the lifestyle is like. Give them exposure to the many ways that one can be involved in the sustenance of one's household, and tempt them down the same path, just from your pride in accomplishment. And know that, come the zombies, your community will be better off for your work.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-7830466895421876902011-02-14T15:15:00.000-05:002011-02-14T15:15:26.872-05:00The best Valentine's Day song evah<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vy70vAgmHcU?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />Enjoy, and then spend the rest of the day humming it, driving your partner/SO/spouse/friend/fwb/neighbor/passersby nuts.<br /><br />My family "celebrated" Valentine's Day yesterday, mostly by fixing a special meal and then proceeding to enjoy it around the table--as opposed to our more normal dinnertime shenanigans (that involve a lot of saying "stop doing that and EAT.") My youngest son has a special girl, for whom he made a special valentine's card, complete with extra heart insert. It would seem that this is requited, as he got an early, equally-handmade valentine from her on Friday that said, and I quote "A kiss for you". They. Are. In. Kindergarten.<br /><br />*sigh*<br /><br />Hope everyone enjoys the day, and remembers the most important advice ever given, from Harris Telemaker: "There's someone out there for everyone - even if you need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them."Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-64461589127664507922011-02-14T13:36:00.001-05:002011-02-14T13:36:26.598-05:00Uh oh... Robyn's been messing about with her design settings again...Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-29975660973949107152011-02-07T15:12:00.002-05:002011-02-07T15:32:24.440-05:00A glimpse of plateNear the end of last year, I was careening towards a colossal case of burnout. I had so many things to do, so much to remember to do, so many things that I cared about doing, that I could no longer keep it all straight. Things that matter to me--really, really matter, like the co-op and our cowshare--were falling through the cracks. Every time I received an email about the co-op, I wanted to cry or hide under the couch, even if it was a simple question like "So, when do you think you'll be opening?" Very reasonable requests were being unfulfilled--hell, they weren't even being <span style="font-style: italic;">remembered</span>. I was doing more damage than good to the things I care about. I was putting my job ahead of my volunteer activities, which is fine and right in many ways, but I had nothing left over. I tried to keep space for my family, and while in the most technical sense I succeeded, I can't help but notice that even when I was home, I wasn't really <span style="font-style: italic;">there</span>. I was glazed-over, and not in the good way like honey-baked chicken. I needed a break! But no break was forthcoming.<br /><br />I didn't really need a break, though. I needed to let go of some of these duties. And so, for the past month, I have been steadily doing exactly that. Fortunately, I work and volunteer with some of the best, most understanding, and above all <span style="font-style: italic;">tolerant</span> people in existence, and I think they could all see that Robyn was going to break soon if something didn't give. So I put out a plea of "help!" and many, many people stepped up to the plate. <br /><br />And then yesterday it really happened. I got the email that said "Nope, it's already done, you don't have to worry about that any more!" I told my husband, and he said, "You just got your first glimpse of plate." Huh? "Plate. You know, your plate? Which has been far too full for far too long?" Oh! Yes! I can see a bit of plate!<br /><br />Of course, this has been slowly happening for some time now, but it's only hitting me just how much I have managed to clear off. Here's a short list of things that I used to do that now other people do:<br /><ul><li>tracking and placing cowshare orders</li><li>collecting cowshare payments, making deposits, and paying all relevant people</li><li>writing the co-op newsletters</li><li>maintaining the co-op website</li><li>maintaining the co-op member list</li><li>ordering, picking up, and distributing print jobs for the co-op</li><li>compiling mailings for the co-op</li><li>managing the email list for the co-op</li><li>running the Children's Religious Education program at my church</li></ul>That's what I can remember off the top of my head. And do you know what else this means? It means that I am surrounded by wonderful people who are willing to share the burden of doing this stuff, because this stuff matters as much to them as it does to me. Lucky, ain't I?<br /><br />I still have a pretty full plate, and naturally I keep refilling it. But my refill looks a little saner, I think. Like, caring for the chickens, or starting my seedlings (two kinds of onions, leeks, cabbage, broccoli, and kale, all in their little plugs ready to sprout!). I think a month or two of a drastically reduced volunteer load will help me regain my balance a bit. <br /><br />Of course, my job is also in mega-ramp-up mode. Next week I start a marathon battery of intern candidate interviews, quickly followed by hosting an alternative Spring Break troup from an Ohio university, then it's on to the Earth Day Celebration (which is a Big Deal(tm) out here), before we get full swing into planting season, shearing for the alpacas, and our 15th Anniversary Farm to Fork benefit dinner. So please don't misunderstand me, I'll be busy. But with some of the volunteer tasks spread out more amongst others, I think I might be able to hack it.<br /><br />Now if I could just kick this bloody cold....Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-71469282146618251162011-01-27T15:28:00.003-05:002011-01-27T16:04:09.626-05:00The big problems #'s 1 and 2So I'm sitting here thinking about what the big problems our household will have transitioning to a low/no-energy future. I'm trying to think mainly about things that will be large structural issues, and ones that we can plausibly do something about. So, for example, how we will heat our house is something we have control over, and that we don't have good solutions for. Maintaining a public school system, on the other hand, is really not something we can personally do much about (though you'd better believe I will fight for it whatever ways I can).<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Big Problem #1 = heat</span></span><br /></span>The first thing that comes to mind, and what was rolling around in my head and eventually turned into this blog post, is heat. Right now we have no way to heat our house without our furnace or, at least, an electric-powered infrared space heater (which is really cool [er, hot] but not relevant right now). If for any reason we don't have access to gas or electric, we will get cold. Fast. I believe our furnace relies on electric power, too, so even if we still have gas, we don't have heat. But hey, how often do we have power outages? Oh... yeah, often. Right. But not <span style="font-style: italic;">extended </span>power outages! Surely that will <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span> happen! Oh... um... fine.<br /><br />What are our options here? Well, we have a chimney, but it's been walled over in our house. Also, the chimney itself is in fine shape, but there is no lining or anything--it's just brick. So one of the most obvious options would be to have the chimney lined ($2500), access the chimney on the first floor, and install a wood stove (woodstove = $500-1000; guestimate for the construction = $1500). Naturally, this creates some new problems:<br /><ol><li>the fridge in the kitchen butts up against the wall that houses the chimney. Now, in fairness, if we're in no-electric-world, a functioning fridge won't be much of an issue. But I expect that we'll at least have electricity for some time, and that time will overlap with periods where we would like to use our stove. And even if we don't use the fridge with electricity, we might still use it as an icebox, or for "cooler" storage. So the fridge might need to be moved, or at least insulated around; that's more money/remodeling.</li><li>A source of wood. Okay, now, in fairness, I personally manage over 300 acres of classified forest for my job, so I could probably kill a day or two with some friends thinning trees. But really, that should stay here on the property of my employer (even if I offered to pay, they'd probably prefer to have the wood, since they have a biomass heater themselves). We do live in a wooded area, so I expect we could find a source, but we certainly don't have one right now, and nothing particularly nearby.</li><li>Type of fuel. Maybe it would be better to get a pellet stove? I mean, damn they're cheap. Except... where the #$*% would I get pellets once The End Is Nigh? Okay, maybe no pellet stove.</li></ol>What other options are out there right now? There's geothermal, but that's still dependent upon some source of fuel--electricity or gas. Solar in winter sucks around here. Wind, too, ain't a great bet. If we could bank enough energy from solar in the summer to use in the winter--maybe that would work? We'd have to convert to an electric furnace, which would probably cost more than all of the work putting in a wood stove would cost anyway, and the cost of the solar installation makes my head spin. I'm not thinking of anything else. Suggestions? Blessedly, even in the absence of a heat source, our house tends to stay over 40*F, which is certainly livable, if uncomfortable. But I would <span style="font-style: italic;">loooove</span> to purchase and tear down the house to our south! Ooo, that would make our house much warmer right there! (And would also cost more than everything else I've suggested so far, with far less return on investment; ah well, so much for dreams.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Big Problem #2 = cooking</span></span><br />Okay, so the connection between problem #1 and #2 is pretty obvious. Unlike heating, we do have a few ways of cooking in the absence of gas or electric. We have a camp stove, to start with, which is a good short-term solution. We can cook for a few days or even a few weeks on that. There are also rocket stoves, which I've not made yet, but think I could, and we can cook over those. (Hey! Rocket mass heaters! That could also be a heating solution! Hmmm... will mull that over.) There are also solar ovens, which we could use in the summer and MAYBE in the winter here (big ole maybe). These are all great, but have some problems:<br /><ol><li>Other than the camp stove, we don't actually <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> any of these things (yes yes yes, I do see those things over there on my To Do list, why thank you for noticing).</li><li>The time we're most likely to lose power in a short-term fashion is the winter; all of the above cooking items must be used outside for health and safety reasons, and in some cases (solar oven) may not work for crap when it's cold. We need a way to cook when it's cold that won't cause us to get frostbite or die of carbon monoxide poisoning.</li></ol>So what would be a good fit here? A wood cookstove. Duh. Did I quote $500-1000 for a woodstove? Silly me, make that $1500-3000. But still, could be worth it, yah? If we went that direction, anyway. Does anyone know if you can cook on any part of a rocket mass heater? Hmmm...<br /><br />Okay, those are some thoughts. Probably more thoughts to come. I spend a lot of my time thinking.Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-36469844901691579282011-01-01T13:34:00.004-05:002011-01-03T15:34:55.125-05:00Dear Blog Reader,<br /><br />I think this is the first time in quite awhile that I haven't told the previous year not to let the door hit its ass on its way out. 2010 wasn't too bad, maybe it was even good. More good than bad happened for our family, by a long shot. There's so much I want to say in this post, but my brain just isn't fitting itself properly around it. When all else fails, try a silly metaphor, right? So, I'd like to summarize this year with the following photo:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xZGbifAkr6Q/TR929Wav33I/AAAAAAAAAIc/vniaySHzhzM/s1600/yearlong%2Byarn.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xZGbifAkr6Q/TR929Wav33I/AAAAAAAAAIc/vniaySHzhzM/s200/yearlong%2Byarn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557291261560348530" border="0" /></a>Let's allow this humble bobbin of homespun to represent a lot of what has gone on in our home this year. Please, allow me to elaborate.<br /><br />Well, first, it's just awesome. The fiber is from a little local dyer named <a href="http://www.dyeabolicalyarns.com/">Dyeabolical Yarns</a> in St. Louis, near where my mom lives. When I saw this colorway my heart totally melted and I sent my mom one of those "PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE CAN I HAVE THIS FOR CHRISTMAS PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE?!?!" emails. The colorway is called "Little Bo Peep". Sounds like me, right? *snort* But it is awesome. I haven't even plied it yet. I'm calling it my "Yearlong Yarn" since I started it on Dec. 30, 2010, and finished it on Jan. 1, 2011 (at 1:30am).<br /><br />Anyway, I digress. First, I should refer folks to my post on <a href="http://adaptinginplace.blogspot.com/2010/03/spinning-life.html">spinning and my own personal mental state</a>, and point out that I am still happily spinning away. So there's that.<br /><br />Also, this represents my new job, which I've prattled on and on about elsewhere. A lot of my job is about fiberwork, since we have alpacas, and hence, a sea worth of alpaca fiber. So my homespun often reminds me of my day job, and since my day job is so awesome, that's okay. Some folks here will remember than in January 2009 we were finishing up 9 months of unemployment, and were quite literally one month away from "Uh... I don't know what to do now, actually." I got this job in the middle of that month, and I cried when I accepted. The job has provided monetary and mental stability, which is worth more than a King's ransom. Considering I work for the Sisters of Providence, I cannot help but at least <span style="font-style: italic;">consider</span> that there was a Providential hand in all of this....<br /><br />The homespun also represents our family's ability to remain true to our values of homemaking and homecare. This is somewhat because my salary is decent, but also because our lifestyle is much more frugal than most, and because I have a husband that is willing to buck accepted social norms in order to stay home and learn how to manage our household, which is <span style="font-style: italic;">not easy</span>. I am more blessed than I have any reason to deserve to have a husband like Brian. Not just blessed--straight up lucky. Becoming a homemaker is hard for a woman in our society, but at least it's still socially acceptable. A man as a homemaker is becoming more common, but still isn't considered appropriate. It is so bizarre to me how much we have devalued the most important of careers--home & family care, teaching, farming. It's insane. But screw society. Having one adult at home, at least part time (by preference, full time) has always been important to us, and we're lucky to be able to keep to this value, no matter what anyone else thinks. Oh, and ginseng. Never underestimate the value of ginseng in a family with depressed individuals--seriously.<br /><br />And also on the homemaking front, let's not forget the chickens, and our expanding ability to be more self-reliant. Now, we don't delude ourselves that we'll be able to become fully self-sufficient on our little under-1/10-acre lot, and frankly I don't even think that this is desirable. I would vastly prefer working together with my neighbors to create a more self-reliant neighborhood, and working with local businesses to create a more self-reliant community. But we can live as much of the values as we can, and get better and better about it as we go. We can be one of the families that helps others see how a different, slower, lower-energy life could look, and that really it's pretty cool. AND, to that end, we will hopefully be scheduling an Urban Chicken Open House this spring! Woo-hoo! (My husband said it was okay--really!)<br /><br />One of the frustrating things this year has been the relative lack of progress on starting our local foods co-op. We continue to grow in membership, but we are not bringing in the investments and member loans we need to really get off the ground. But we have an amazing team of leaders who, somehow, remain dedicated to this, and a membership that is being patient and forgiving and, hopefully, will soon begin to really step up and make our store a reality.<br /><br />There's just so much else to say, but no way I could fit it all in here. I didn't even come close to finishing the "To Do 2010" list, since most of 2010 was spent adjusting to our new lifestyle. But hope springs eternal (as my boss loves to say), so I will rename that list "To Do 2011" and maybe even add a few things to it. I've got posts rolling around in my head already for the upcoming year. I hope you'll stick around, and share your wisdom with me whenever you can. Y'all have been invaluable to me, and I wish each of you the best of New Years, with prosperity and happiness in everything you do.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />RobynRobyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1930142685890514338.post-83876234121503581512010-12-24T08:52:00.003-05:002010-12-24T09:02:29.936-05:00Why I believe in SantaI believe in Santa. Yes, I'm serious, I really do. I have a lot of reasons for this, and maybe someday they'll all spill out onto this blog. But for today, Christmas Eve, I don't see any reason in belaboring the point more than necessary, when Terry Pratchett got most of it exactly right in he best book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Hogfather</span>, in a conversation between Death and his granddaughter (trust me) Susan.<br /><br />Susan: Now tell me what would have happened--<br />Death: If we hadn't saved the Hogfather? The sun would not have risen. A mere ball of gas would have illumined the world.<br />Susan: Alright, I'm not stupid. You're saying that humans need fantasies to make life bearable.<br />Death: Humans need fantasy to <span style="font-style: italic;">be</span> human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.<br />Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?<br />Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.<br />Susan: So we can believe the big ones?<br />Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.<br />Susan: They're not the same at all.<br />Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.<br />Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?<br />Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become? <div style="position: fixed;"><div id="new_selection_block0.39167991998620566" style="overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;"><br /><br /> URL: <a href="http://able2know.org/topic/108529-1" target="_blank_">http://able2know.org/topic/108529-1</a></div></div><br /><br />Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, and joyous New Year everyone!Robyn M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08885081377174592304noreply@blogger.com2