Victory Begins at Home

Last night at knitting grope, Lisa told me she had tried making the chocolate cake and her family found it rather grainy. After chatting with one of the expert cooks in the group, we came up with some ideas for people who aren't keen on grainy cake (as we more or less are now): try whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour, or a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat in whatever proportion you'd like. Or replace some of the whole wheat with some barley flour, a very soft and slightly nutty flavor.

After the cooking consult, Amy informed me that the origins of this kind of cake--Victory Cake--are from the World War I and World War II eras when butter, eggs, wheat, and sugar were in short supply. (Well, this one certainly uses plenty of its share of sugar and wheat.) Cool!

I remember making the wells in cakes when I baked with my grandmother, who easily could have started doing it during the war. The recipe I put up was one I riffed off from a crumpled recipe for a similar cake made from white flour and the like.



Given that I am currently obsessed with home activity during the Great Depression and World War II, I am absolutely thrilled to learn the history of this cake. Thanks, Amy!

On the Calendar

Son filled out our kitchen calendar and included this event
for tonight at 7pm:

Knitting Grope

Now this should be fun....

Creating Revolution

One of my favorite knitting podcasts is Sticks and String. Every week the host, an Australian "bloke" named David Reidy, offers up interesting talk, peaceful music, and truly insightful essays. A few weeks ago, he offered up his musings about why knitting is such a revolutionary act.

Although many of us spend way too much money on yarn and fiber, fundamentally knitting is an anti-consumerist activity. Even if we hang out on Ravelry, read numerous knitting magazines and blogs, and go to every local yarn store in every place we visit, we are not constantly being marketed to by huge corporations whose advertising budgets partly go to psychologists who can tell them the best way to brainwash consumers. Far more often, our money goes to local businesses or small companies with very few advertising dollars. This is an economy that is much more sustainable than buying products made by child laborers in developing countries and sold for cheap at big-box stores.

On top of that, the money we spend actually winds up not seeming like a lot (even when we buy luxury yarn) when we consider that we get, as Reidy says, "multiple sources of pleasure" from each of our fiber purchases. Instead of paying for some entertainment or other, we get to do the planning and knitting of what we are to make. And then, afterwards, we have the thing itself. A sweater to keep us warm (and allow us to keep the heat down)? A lace shawl to show friends and relations how much we treasure them? (A felted tote bag to carry our way-too-much yarn and way-too-many books?)

Fundamentally, knitting is not about buying STUFF to bring us instant (and fleeting) fulfillment, or the "convenience" of no work. Instead, knitting teaches us to be patient, to work hard and to work creatively, to appreciate these handmade items because we spent hours (or days or months) of our own time in their making and stitched ourselves into each one, to expect something different from cookie-cutter perfection when we look for beauty in the world.

Cake

...for the Earth, this week.

Easy Healthy Wholesome Vegan Chocolate Cake
(a total winner of a recipe that we may have a bit too regularly)

1.5 cups whole wheat flour (or barley flour or millet or whatever)
3 TB of cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup sucanat or other sugar (we put in a bit less and it was still plenty sweet)
0.5 tsp salt
5 TB olive oil (or canola or whatever. I want to try coconut oil.)
1 TB vinegar (we use raw apple cider vinegar but plain white should work just fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold leftover coffee (but it is great with just plain water too)


Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients, with a whisk so you can avoid sifting everything. (You can keep this dry mix in a jar in the pantry if you feel the need to be ready tout-suite for cake emergencies.)

Make three indentations in the dry mixture. In one, pour the oil. Another gets the vinegar, and the third gets the vanilla. (This is mostly to entertain your 8yo sous chef.) Then pour the coffee or water all over the top and mix everything together.

Pour into an 8x8 or 9x9 cake pan (which can be greased but doesn't absolutely require it).

Slip it in the oven and bake for half an hour.

Yummy.

See here for a recipe update and some history of this cake.

Visiting the Past

We spent the morning exploring farm skills at Claude Moore Colonial Farm. What a lovely day! The combination of lovely weather, a fascinating place, and a bunch of good homeschooling friends made it a wonderful place to be.

First, the obligatory fiber pics. Son got to card the wool of sheep that live on the farm. Here he is, figuring out how to share the experience with the most adorable little fiber convert I've seen:



Then they took the fiber they carded to women who showed them how to make yarn with drop spindles. Many of the kids in our group have done a lot of spinning a home, and I think the volunteer spinners were totally taken off guard by the knowledge of these youngsters.



But alas, work on a farm is not all about fiber.

So we dipped candles:



And then we headed off to grind corn. Here is Son's friend at work. (Incidentally, she shares both my first and middle name, both very old-fashioned names.)




Then off for some play.

Playing hoops, Colonial style:



Bowling:



Throwing corn cobs with feathers stuck in them through hanging hoops:

Sabbath for the Earth

See my works, how fine and excellent they are!
All that I have created, I have created for you.
Think upon this and do not corrupt and desolate My World,
For if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you.
--Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28

Melinda over at Elements in Time, realizing how wonderful Earth Hour was for so many of us, has suggested we schedule it weekly. What an inspired idea!



For many years, my family celebrated Shabbat very regularly. We made our own challah, had a nice dinner, drank wine, said blessings over candles and over each other, and spent the evening enjoying one another's company. In some years, we carried our celebration of Shabbat into Saturday (which is, of course, the norm--Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, more or less)--but sometimes we just emphasized Friday evening.

This year, we've been trying to reconcile our connection to our Jewish heritage with our fundamentally secular beliefs about God. Taking the traditional blessings and making them meaningful in an egalitarian and non-religious way is not at all difficult--but at this point, the words don't yet have years of repetition to make us feel connected.

We have still been lighting candles on a lot of Friday evenings and we've been trying out various Humanist-Jewish "prayers," but it is kind of astonishing to me how many Fridays we haven't celebrated at all, in any way. It is something I miss tremendously--not only because of the cultural ritual, but because Shabbat is a time of intense recognition of our relationships with each other and with friends, a recognition that gets enacted at the altar of the table, every week.

When I read Melinda's proposal for the weekly Hour for the Planet, I realized that combining our environmental politics, our desire for authentic connection with others, and our Shabbat traditions could be exactly what we need.

So the lights will stay out, as they did for Earth Hour, from the time we light the candles until we go to bed. We'll turn off the computer. The table is set, dinner is made--including a really healthy vegan chocolate cake (whose recipe is forthcoming if it the cake is any good), and the candles are ready.

May this be a night of peace.

Putting Your Foot (and your pocketbook) Down

Crunchy Chicken can always be counted upon to lay out a great challenge.

I just signed up for Buy Nothing Month. This is the kind of challenge I've been thinking of doing since I heard about Buy Nothing Day and then read the fabulous book by Judith Levine, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping. A day seemed too short--but a year seemed to long. But here in the Buy Nothing month, as the clever Miss Crunchy says, we have sort of a "sub-Compact".



I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the amount of advertising that surrounds us. On my recent flight to a conference and book signing, I put my shoes through security in a plastic tub with an advertisement in the bottom. After we took off, I lowered my tray table to find yet another advertisement. Neither of these places are particularly heinous places for advertisements--not like ads on a school bus or something-- but it certainly does add to my feeling that I am constantly under siege by the corporate world.

This challenge is just a little way of fighting back, of resisting.

* * *

On the other hand:

I spent a little time Sunday at a yarn party in my neighborhood. There were about a dozen local completely independent vendors there, selling hand-spun yarn, hand-dyed fiber, hand-sewn knitting bags, and self-designed patterns. I don't want to stop buying things that support the makers. The yarn party is the fiber world's equivalent of the farmers market. THIS is the way I want commerce to be.

But sometimes, we need a little kick to get us to reset our priorities and help us see things from a different view. So I've signed up for this month--a month, I might add, which is conveniently situated smack dab between the yarn party and Maryland Sheep and Wool.

* * *

Buying nothing means:

* No new clothes
* No new gadgets
* No new furniture or housewares
* No salon services
* No makeup
* No tools
* No whatever the hell else people buy

There are exemptions for edibles, supplies for vegetable gardens, household necessities (like toilet paper for visitors), necessary fuel, and anything else we need for our survival. And if participants must absolutely acquire something else, we must try to borrow, barter, or buy it used. Preplanned (or emergency) home repair is also exempt, as is anything already ordered.

April is the month of the both my son's birthday and my own. I've already ordered special presents (ones that are sort of relevant, in their own ways), so I think this first barrier will be easy enough to get past.

April is also the month of Passover--and therefore my in-laws will be visiting for a week. The visit might be a harder challenge than the birthdays, since shopping is something my in-laws enjoy and therefore we do more when they are visiting than we do otherwise.

Of course, you can always set any caveats in advance that make one of Crunchy Chicken's challenges more appropriate for you. In this case, mine is that at the yarn party, I told one of my favorite fiber pushers that I wanted to order a particular color and would contact her soon. So that, I think, is my exception.

And Crunchy Chicken does give an option for the weak among us: "If you end up buying something new that is non-essential, I'll be hosting a weekly Sunday Confessional for you to justify your purchase. So, just think about having to confess to the world what you couldn't hold off on buying."

* * *

Of course, I am not signing up my partner or son for this adventure. Perhaps they'll join me--but perhaps not. Son has his cat-sitting money burning a hole in his pocket--but even if he spends it, it is likely to be at the charity-supporting thrift store.

But I'm here to recruit all you readers to join me in whatever way feels right to you. Let me know what you think!

Looks like real education, eh?

I love how our child can be poking around the basement for some new excitement, find an old tool of a parent's, and start fiddling around--and wind up in a pose perfect for the twice-a-year county homeschool review....

This--this follow-your-heart glee--is what learning is really about. I feel so honored to be a part of it.

Celebrating

Last night while we celebrated Earth Hour, we shared a lovely local meal:



Meatloaf with local ground beef, an egg, and a little milk all from the same source combined with onions from the farmers market, dried tomatoes (which we dehydrated ourselves during the summer) and chives from a pot on our deck.

Garden Greens from our own backyard: a little chard, a little kale (both of which made it through the winter, and some baby dandelion weeds, sauteed in local butter with some more of the onions and the soaking liquid from our sundried tomatoes.

Baked Potatoes from our farmer's market dressed with sour cream from our above-mentioned meat-and-dairy source.

* * *

We topped off our celebration by rereading (by candlelight) a bit of the perfect spring book: Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

Then we serenaded ourselves before bed by playing trios on our recorders--something we have not done in far too long. What a fulfilling way to spend Earth Hour!

* * *

Earth Hour

Tonight is the international Earth Hour, also known here in the States as Lights Out America.



Turning off the lights for just one hour does make a small difference all by itself--but primarily, this is a symbolic opportunity. Join us in celebrating it by turning off your computer, your television, and the lights. Sit down for a romantic meal by candlelight, read poetry, play word games, pull out your guitar or banjo for a sing-along--and lets spend the evening talking with our families and friends tonight, remembering what is really important to us. What a great opportunity to recognize that the "sacrifices" that we have to make in order to protect the earth and its inhabitants may not be sacrifices at all but may ultimately bring us to a better and more authentic life.

* * *

Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Black and White

Peter Singer, the author of such classics as Animal Liberation and The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, wrote a very powerful book in 2004 called The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush. Over and over, President Bush has embraced not only the ideology of cut-and-dried moral thinking but its rhetoric: "We are in a conflict between good and evil, and American will call evil by its name," the president said in 2002. Our "moral nation" would go to war (literal and figurative war) with "the axis of evil."

For him, "moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place." And rather than using evil as an adjective and then condemning behavior, Bush has a tendency to use evil as a noun--as Singer says, "as a thing, or a force, something that has a real existence apart from the cruel, callous, brutal, and selfish acts of which human beings are capable." This is not a way of talking about ethics that fits in easily with the diverse modern secular world.

Singer's book is an extended discussion of Bush's own moral philosophy. The author contrasts the president's views on stem-cell research to his position on capital punishment, questioning what the "sanctity of life" actually means to Bush. If you say you care about the legions of children living in poverty, is it ethical to cut services in order to pass tax cuts for corporations? Singer has a knack for contrasting policies that really highlight large moral inconsistencies such as the rhetoric about free trade versus the reality of massive subsidies to industry. The importance of both family and states rights--except in the case of gay marriage. Or--perhaps my favorite: having a brief but messy affair with a presidential intern and lying about it versus lying about why the nation should enter a very long and messy war.

Singer speculates that the president might well be stuck in "conventional morality," the characteristic of teenagers, in which simple moral rules constitute one's moral outlook, and the idea that such rules might conflict hasn't sunk in yet. At the very least, Bush has not thought through the complexities of the issues he is called upon to deal with.

As reviewer Colin McGinn summarizes, "The conventional view of George W. Bush is that, while he is a man of marked intellectual limitations, he is governed by a consistent set of deeply held moral convictions. Singer's book refutes this comforting myth. Bush is a man of sporadically good moral instincts, perhaps..., but he sways inconsistently and opportunistically in the political breeze, and has no idea how to make his beliefs fit coherently together."

* * *

Coming up soon: a review of Glenn Greenwald's 2007 book A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

The Philosophy of Fair Isle

I recently started my first big stranded project: Philosopher's Wool "Color Your Own" cardigan in the Fall colorway. My hope was to make my way through the sleeves before the heat set in enough that I wanted a lighter project.



Well--one week later and they are both done! Fair Isle knitting is incredibly addictive and it just flies--at least when it is knitted with worsted-weight yarn.

But now...

I'm hesitating about casting on 200 stitches for the body....

I currently have way too many projects on the needles and keep finding excuses not to do such extensive counting. Hrmph.

But I'll screw my courage to the sticking place (yes--I just saw the Folger's amazing Macbeth)and pull out the long needles, the black yarn, and several markers to mark my progress. Wish me luck.


Project Spectrum: Fire

Growing Your Own--just a little...

Due to my long lingering case of croup, I have not done a whole lot of anything--blogging, cooking, knitting, gardening, even reading. But last night we ate the first fruits of this season's garden: a sprinkling of herbs (chives and parsley).



We wilted some baby spinach, sauteed some mild fish, and put together a light sauce from fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice boiled down with butter. The little home-grown herb garnish was just the right finishing touch.

And while the grapefruit juice was reducing, I took the highlighter to the seed catalog and dreamed of the last freeze date.

juxtaposition

David and I received a thanks for our donation to Doctors Without Borders today, with this amazing photograph on the front. There is something about the combination of poverty, tradition, deep pride, beauty, and plastic that just hit me in the gut. I can't even break apart what I feel.

Homegrown Revolution

Isn't it incredible how dangerous the act of creating can be?



As these inspiring gardeners say, when you produce your own food and are able to separate from the commerical food supply, you are in danger of becoming free.

Plague

After one post on pain and the next on fear, I suppose you must really be craving a happy post--but unfortunately, I am living in the house of the plague.

For a week I've been coughing my little head off--apparently with the croup. (Did you even know that post-toddlers can get croup?)

Just as I did when I had asthmatic symptoms or whooping cough or what have you when I was a little girl, I've spent an enormous amount of time in the steam of a hot bath. Can't wait to see the water bill.... But the steam really works, at least for an hour or so. And now I'm taking oral steroids, too. (I asked the resident doc if I could go to the olympics and he said not this week--due to the cough, not the drugs.)

David came home from work last night feeling very ill himself--possibly the flu?--and is asleep upstairs. At least he gets an adult illness....

Our son is still healthy and has been making us endless cups of tea, repositioning our pillows, and getting pretty bored. Luckily, our friends have been looking after all of us and entertaining him occasionally. He is a pretty amazing kid who doesn't need much to be happy.

Although I still bark quite a bit and my head is too cloudy-headed to do any significant work, I'm starting to get a little better, I think.

Upcoming: a series of posts on unconventional revolutions, a series of posts on the ways people have imagined life in a chaotic future, and a picture-heavy post of me modelling my still-as-of-yet-unseamed-but-still-lovely aran cardigan.

"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning"

--F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Crack-Up

Son and I enjoyed watching the DVD How Art Made the World last week. One of the most fascinating parts included a discussion of the power of images that tap into the the fear of death.

In the DVD, the presenters were talking about very early art--but when I looked further into a research study cited in the documentary, I came across the extensive work of Sheldon Solomon and Jeff Greenberg. Although in the film they do not explicitly discuss the manipulation of fear in modern politics, their larger works do.

Their book In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror explores the way that terrorism, by tapping into our deep fear of death, destabilizes society in a way far greater than the actual threat itself.

It is because of our anxiety about our own deaths that we reach out to strengthen our relationships with people with like minds. That could be all for the good--but what is far more pronounced than our efforts to create community is our efforts to conceive of people with whom we do not share a world view as our enemies. In a time of peace, we might be able to coexist happily, but in a time where the threat of death looms, we feel we must fight the opposition. And to fight that opposition, we feel we must have a parent-leader whose rule is not challenged.

We've seen how the Bush administration has recruited that natural process in order to support his own ends and his own position of power. Making sure the American people stayed in a state of fear allowed him and his cronies to avoid any significant opposition from his people.

The researchers from the Art documentary looked at campaign rhetoric as well. As one summary of their study said, "In one experiment Greenberg and colleagues ran during the 2004 campaign, volunteers who completed a questionnaire that reminded them about their own inevitable death (how thoughts of their own death made them feel and what they thought would happen to them physically after they died) expressed greater support for Bush than voters of similar leanings who were not reminded of mortality. The researchers also found that subliminal reminders of death increased support for Bush (and decreased support for Kerry) even among liberals."

Even Newsweek knows this stuff. In an article that ran only two months ago, they showed that the manipulation of fear was by far the most effective kind of political rhetoric--and they showed how all candidates were using it, even those who explicitly condemned it. They end their article saying that "a candidate who neglects the fear factor should have a concession speech ready to go."

* * *

As I packed my bags to return to the DC area from NC, I turned on the television. Not having television at home, I am always stunned by the intense images and messages that most people have targeted at them every day. (In yesterday's post about pain, I did not think about how much pain Americans see every day, acted out before them on the screen.)

Hillary Clinton's new ad--about who you want to answer the emergency phone at 3am when your children are sleeping--was playing. As opposed to the old Mondale ad saying exactly the same thing, Clinton's ad adds the deeply emotional overlay of protecting our own personal homes and our families. At home, we have a mother checking on her children. In the White House home, we have a national mother taking care of her symbolic children--us. (I guess I do prefer this image to yet another patriarchal leader--but good grief....)

I am overwhelmed, disappointed in her in a way I never thought I would be. Clinton did not get my vote in the primary, but I've always said I would be quite happy to vote for her and work for her in the general. I would be absolutely thrilled to see her as the next president, if she became the Democratic nominee.

I suppose I still will be, but her abuse of the fear card worries me tremendously. Talking about security is clearly important in this campaign, but what Clinton has done in not straight-forward talk. Instead it is a calculated strategy. She and her handlers must have read that Newsweek article.

What makes me so upset by this ad is that I see it as the first act that will tear down the Democrats. Yes--Clinton and Obama have criticized each other before, have sniped at each other, have done some of the preliminary work for the Republicans in all sorts of little ways. But this feels very different, very large.

I also wonder if the ad will backfire even if Clinton does get the nomination. If McCain were to say the same about her, what would the answer be for most of America? I'm not sure I want to know that answer. (Um... and this tactic didn't work out so well for Mondale...)

Instead, I want a president who will try with all of his or her might to keep that phone from ringing.


* * *

"One of [Bill] Clinton's laws of politics is this: If one candidate's trying to scare you, and the other one's trying to get you to think; if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes; you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope." --Bill Clinton, 1994

* * *

So that does it. I'm putting Fear on my "Do Not Call" list.

Pain

I spent the past few days in North Carolina, enjoying the beautiful spring temperatures and flowering trees that seem to have popped up there.

Last Thursday evening, my cowriter and I gave a book reading and a signing in Durham at one of my all-time-favorite bookstores (after prepping for it over gelato at the incomparable Francesca's.)

The next morning, the two of us headed over to Chapel Hill for a conference on Civil Rights and the Body. For two days we listened to the papers of many young scholars--about the pleasures of the body, about gaze, about illness, about violence. Our paper was the final one of the meeting.

It felt so...good? comfortable?...to be with other scholars who are also enmeshed in horror. So often we as a society--or possibly we as a species?--shy away from this kind of intense focus on difficulty and pain. Here I was with others, equally obsessed with racial violence and its very specific affects on individual people. Many of us spent a lot of the weekend on the verge of tears about our own projects and about other people's work.

I sometimes wonder how people who deal day after day with immediate pain in others incorporate it into their lives. How do doctors, for example, handle having patients who are dying or who are in intense pain? Clearly, being on the fringes of violence or illness is nothing at all like the pain felt by the actual victims and patients--but on the other hand, the historian or the social worker or the doctor or whatever is supposed to leave the archive or the office and go back to the perfectly normal world where there is no space carved out for their own emotional devastation.

I raised this question with a few of the other historians there, joking that my next project will be on the history of birthday parties or something. One, who studies lynching and Jim Crow violence, told me that after his lynching book, he wrote about utopian communities. This kind of change is something in our bodies calling for self-preservation.

* * *

I returned home with a big sleep deficit and a massive sore throat. Now, instead of obsessing about the violation of people's bodies in history, I'm thinking about phlegm. Cough, cough.

Dipping Pretzels

Son and one of his pals had a blast dipping pretzel sticks in melted chocolate:



Note to self: don't let chocolate harden in glass bowl before washing....


ABC-along

Tearing up the calendar

While we were out of town for the last few days, I kept some notes about my days and considered posting them to fulfill my duties for Blog 365. But I'm hesitating. I've really had no problem posting something every day--but often it is stuff I really haven't thought through enough to post, or something that feels more like a waste of everybody's time (the writer's and the reader's time) than a real post. Sometimes I've been really busy and probably should have put other priorities over the blog, but did not because of the 365 challenge.

There are times when blogging regularly pushes me to think more. But there are other times when it pushes me to wrap things up before I have had quite enough time to prioritize them.

So I am hereby quitting Blog 365 and while I intend to hold myself to writing something every day, I probably won't post all of it. Good luck to all of you who are sticking with it!

Mountains

David and I have joined a group of friends who live on a farm in the peaceful hills of Pennsylvania for a book group. In preparation for our first meeting tomorrow evening, I spent much of this snowy afternoon reading Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder.

What a powerful book!

I think I'll be writing more about the main thrust of the book soon, but right now I'm stuck on a different part:

There are times when Kidder shows stories that portray Farmer is an arrogant and judgmental man, although the author never seems to say it directly or to take responsibility for casting that vision. In fact, he presents some very difficult-to-handle situations and then essentially justifies the decisions Farmer makes, even though the stories also make Farmer look bad. (I'm thinking especially about his relationship with his wife and daughter here--but it is certainly true at many other moments.)

He (Kidder) also seems overly concerned (at least at times) about whether or not Farmer likes him or approves of him. It is an odd narrative voice occasionally, one that casts the author as a central character in not just the search for the story but in its emotional pacing.

Have you read this book--or another by Kidder? What do you think?

Obamania

Today's message:

"Barack Obama bookmarked your website."

Check out what he can do for you!

Then, brush up on your vocabulary:

Onward Ho

Tinked back several rows to fix a mistake I couldn't even figure out how I made--and then dropped down one cable to fix a miscross several rows further back. (There is something incredible about making such a dramatic change by just dropping then picking back up a few stitches.)

I'm back to where I was--and on the verge of finally finishing this interminable sleeve. I'm chaining myself to this project very effectively still, despite some intense itchiness to cast on something--anything--new.

The Last Piece

Finally knitting the last major piece of the Vickie Cardigan. The back, the two front halves of the cardigan, the first sleeve--and now I'm nearing the end of the second sleeve.

Next: seaming, picking up stitches for and knitting both sides of a button band, knitting the collar, and blocking.

The goal: wear the finished sweater to a conference and a book signing at the end of the month.

Or knit at my knitting group tonight, make a massive mistake, and tink back row after row....

Warmth

Today started out as a beautiful day, a harbinger of spring.

The first yellow crocuses are popping up on our hill. The sun was shining. We decided to go to the park for a picnic.

We packed blue cheese and crackers, vegetable salad, seltzer and grape juice and took off for the park.

On our way, the clouds started looking a little gray.

By the time we spread our feast out on the wooden table, it looked ominous. And after just one bite, raindrops began to fall, the wind was gusting, and the temperature plummeted.

I am in need of Spring.

The Pharmaceutical Cocktail

When the hospital staff brought me meals, they always included cans of Sustacal. I never drank the stuff, but my friends and family helped me build a massive pyramid of the unopened cans. It definitely had the cheerful feel of a frat boy's beer-can decorations.

To honor this ridiculous memory, David brought me a bottle of a competitor's beverage last night.

Now, celebrating 15 years of freedom from the hospital, I've cooked up a new way to get my liquid sustenance:



(Now what I really want to know:
Will anyone reach this post by Googling "Brandy Ensure Cocktail"?)

New, Blank Pages

Fifteen years ago today, I spent twenty-something hours in surgery.

Now, every year on my anniversary, I feel that I have been given an extra day-- a day of luxury, a day to really live. Last year I cast on a new project in cashmere yarn.

And today: well, nothing much today, but I prepared for a celebration with friends tomorrow. Old friends are coming for brunch and brand new friends are coming for dinner.

Every year it feels like a new opportunity, a clean start. I realize that this day is closer to New Year's Day for me than is the first of January or Rosh Hashanah.

"We walk forward into new, blank pages of days on which we can write a fresh story."
--Stuntmother

Chicken Soup with Rice

I sometimes wonder if I've signed up for too many little blog games. Well, perhaps I can sometimes combine them. How about an alphabetical local meal?



We stuck a still-partly-frozen stew chicken from our local meat supplier into the slow cooker and covered it with water along with a bit of locally-grown onion. About 18 hours later, the stock was thick and smelled wonderful.

When dinnertime rolled around, we added some leftover local rice (well, at least it was local where it was bought) and assorted root vegetables, as well as salt and pepper.

* * *

In February it will be
my Snowman's anniversary
with cake for him and soup for me
happy once, happy twice,
happy chicken soup with rice!

--Maurice Sendak

Valentine's Day

Handmade Love:










* * *

Now this is a winner:



And check out some of these wonderful presidential valentines, too.

* * *

While you're planning your VD celebration, don't forget to check out Greenpeace's Eco-Sex Guide.

C is for Cormo

Cormo is an Australian breed of sheep--a cross between merino and corriedale and then developed for a very soft, easy-to spin fiber.

Tune in next time for the continuing adventures of Angora, Bombyx, and Cormo. Where will they go? What will they do? Can they even get along with each other?



ABC-along

The Coming Anniversary

Last year I celebrated my not-quite-Ides-of-February anniversary week by giving the details in a which-is-the-true-story contest.

Sharing the real story with new friends is often difficult. So often people respond with fear or pity. Both reactions feel very uncomfortable. But NOT telling people feels like I am lying or at least hiding some important part of myself.

Since last year I've become friendly with a set of people with whom I have not yet shared this story. One of my goals for this week--a week I always spend contemplating what this anniversary means at this point--is to figure out how to share it without making it seem like a bigger deal than it is.

Clearly it isn't going to be as straightforward a process as I would like it to be, given that it is even hard to refer to it in writing. And writing, at least for me, is a lot easier than talking.

The Birth of the New

David and I were founding members of a local parenting group. The group, based on the ideas of attachment parenting, had a crucial role in our development as a family. Although we still consider ourselves attachment parents and still intend to be part of the group, both of us decided not to run for the Board this year and to retire as group leaders. Our relationship with our almost-nine-year-old son has changed radically over the years. Although ideas about respect for each other are still at the core of our parenting, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and baby-wearing no longer are particularly relevant. Increasingly, I feel old and unable to suggest anything other than, "I know it seems hard now, but just wait a few years...."

The leaders of the group have been remarkably stable over the years. Of the 9 people on the board until last night, 8 have been there from the beginning. But yesterday, so many new people agreed to become more active that many of us felt able to step back. Three of the originals stayed on, but six new people have stepped up--and several have spouses actively involved in the group as well.

Those of us in the original group were remarkable similar in both our styles and in our parenting beliefs. Many of us were friends from beforehand. All 10 of us were partnered and had our partners also on the board (in other words--there were only 5 families on the board).

The new crop of 9 leaders are from 9 different families--and there are a lot of disagreements and differences. Leadership is not going to be as easy or as straight-forward. But the potential for creativity seems higher than ever.

I was afraid this group might only exist because of the desires and work of our own leadership. And here it is now, something much bigger. Incredible. Yes--some are worried that conflicts in the new crop of leaders may be hard to slog through. But I have faith in the power of consensus to bring forth from difficulties a newly strong organization.

I feel like a parent watching my child grow towards maturity. I remember what my mother said when she saw me in my prom dress, waiting for my date to escort me to the school dance. She was looking at me--absolutely baffled--and I asked what was wrong. She answered (unable to censure herself) that she was suddenly seeing me as an adult--pretty immature and silly-looking, but at the same time an absolutely beautiful independent being.


* * *

A new friend just had her third baby--a little girl-- yesterday. Paul, the father, wrote an amazing birth story and shared it with us today. They had quite an eventful morning! Although the new mother planned to have the baby at the hospital, she had a very very fast labor and delivered in their home bathroom before the paramedics arrived. All are well and looking beautiful.

Reading the birth story aloud with David and Abe made us all laugh and cry--and remember how wonderful our own birth experience (also at home) was. There is nothing quite as amazing as suddenly having a new person entering your world.

Dreaming of the Growing Sun

The wind chill is 5 degrees below O, but Spring has arrived on our kitchen table--at least that paper version of the season:



And with it, thoughts of our tiny backyard filled with purple okra, yard-long green beans, round yellow carrots, a hundred kinds of basil, and a thousand types of lettuces. And don't forget the myriad tomatoes....

And although my dreams are a bit over the top given our space, I'm still way behind many of the dreaming gardeners out there. Check out the Growing Challenge, the Victory Garden Drive, the 100 Foot Diet, and Kitchen Gardeners International. What inspiration (and what knowledgeable help) there is out there!

365?

Today is the first day since I signed up for Blog 365 that I have really not felt like posting. At some point the whole enterprise seemed like a really good idea. Not nearly always, but often, writing a blog post makes me think a bit more coherently about what has gone on in my day.

I don't even remember what has gone on in my day today. I'm behind on work, behind on pleasure reading due for a book group which meets tomorrow night, even behind on knitting.

The good news? David used his hand-me-down steam cleaner to get the bathroom and kitchen looking spiffy. What a way to cheer up your mate!

Last-Minute Shabbat Grocery List

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, a Bar of Organic Fair-Trade Dark Chocolate--and Thou.

--Omar Khayyam

Making Faces

Son loves to decorate rice cakes by spreading them with peanut butter then adding raisins, dried apples, and coconut. If you were making a face, what would you add?

Blue Knitting

Berroco 'Bama?

Let me say first that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and will happily vote and work for either Clinton or Obama. I can also say I am often frustrated or disappointed with both of the candidates. I loved the populist rhetoric introduced in the race by Edwards--but if he had been a serious contender, I know I would have had my problems with him, too.

Here in Maryland, we have our primary next week. I think I'll be voting for Obama--and not only because his name sounds like the yarn.

I was born and raised a liberal white southerner and I am very excited about the possibility of some southern states moving from red to blue. This kind of move could pretty much assure a Democratic victory in November.

McCain, the likely Republican nominee, is pretty weak in a lot of the South. Although he is a warmonger military supporter and that works in his favor in the South, his more moderate social views make lots of traditional southern republicans not especially like him.

On the other hand, Obama is getting large percentages and large turnouts in the South among Democrats. The key to winning those states is significantly upping the number of supposedly "unlikely" voters--and he's been doing it in the primaries. Young people and African Americans have been galvanized to go to the polls in numbers seldom seen.

And Independents may be less likely to vote for McCain if Obama is their other choice.

Clinton, I don't think, has the ability to make the move from red to blue happen. Her biggest strength is in traditionally Democratic states--states any Democratic candidate will take.

So right now I'm imagining a Obama-Richardson ticket.

BUT...

...if y'all can come up with the right knitting yarns for the other candidates, perhaps I'll change my mind!

Hoppin' John

In almost a New Year's Day reprise, we made local Hoppin' John and collards.

Both the rice and the crowder pease were bought and grown in South Carolina near where my parents live. Although the beans are so fantastic and flavorful they need nothing more than a smidge of salt, this time I seasoned the Hoppin' John with some bacon from a nearby Amish farm.

The collards were from our local farmers market. I sprinkled my greens with hot pepped vinegar--which we put up during the summer with our own homegrown red peppers.




David and Son decided to do an interpretive dance of our menu:

C is for Cabled Cardigan

Well--the consequences of blithely knitting away on aran cardigans in the car is that Mistakes Are Made:



The section along each side of the back is a 4-row checkerboard. And the edge section for the front? 2-row moss.

When I realized the mistake after finishing the right front, I decided to do it again for the left side. Because it contracts more than the checkerboard, the fronts seem much shorter than the back--but I think this will block out without a problem.

Now the question is, what should I do on the sleeves? Right now I am planning to switch back to the checkerboard. Any votes?

But then, you know, I plan to knit in the car today. Maybe I'll do one of each....


ABC-along

Unraveling's International Pajama Day is here!

We are celebrating the day by snuggling together on the couch with our feet up on the coffee table...



...reading books...



...and having Mimosas, made from oranges we bought in Florida and leftover champagne.



Now THIS is the life!

Are My Hands Clean?

In honor of St. Brigid's day, something a little different:



Are My Hands Clean?
Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon, 1985
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock
Live at Carnegie Hall (You can hear a clip here.)


I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador
In a province soaked in blood,
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill
A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal
Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time
In South Carolina
At the Burlington mills
Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of
the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of
Dupont

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela
Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day
Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,
Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago
Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas
To the factories of Dupont
On the way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina
To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador

In South Carolina
Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton
into miles of fabric for Sears
Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea
Headed for Haiti this time—
May she be one day soon free—
Far from the Port-au-Prince palace
Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications
For three dollars a day

My sisters make my blouse

It leaves the third world for the last time
Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse
On sale for 20% discount

Are my hands clean?