Bits of thoughts

Blood tests: annoying.
Having to fast for said tests: more annoying.
Having the blood tests take three times longer than expected, done by an incompetent student nurse with no people skills to speak of, thereby making me stumble into work late and dizzy with hunger, as my get-breakfast-after-fasting-and-bloodletting time had disappeared: really freaking annoying.

Next time, I am going to show up as early as possible, pack a snack, and request the good nurse. Live and learn and all that.

We watched Walk the Line on cable last night. It didn't suck, but why on earth did the directors decide to let the actors sing, instead of dubbing in the original voices of Johnny Cash and June Carter? Their incredible sound was kind of the whole point, and without it, the movie is kind of flat.

Everything is lovely here. Beautiful, cool-rainy-breezy weather, flowers everywhere, trees budding. Saturday held the first farmers' market of the year, and it was like a festival. I think Virginia is taunting me for thinking of leaving for the land of Oppressive Heat.

I think I'll sue

I hate how litigious our society is, how everything has to be controlled/regulated/labeled to the extreme to protect-- not the consumer, but the producer-- from potential misunderstandings, misuses, general stupidity. This is an old, stale joke, but take the nuts I bought yesterday. (Nuts being part of the let's-get-pregnant! diet that I've created for myself; it's a yummy diet but if it doesn't work, I may get fat from it.) A small bag of almonds to eat with lunch; the word ALMONDS emblazoned across the top of the bag in large, bold letters. And on the back, the usual warning: "may contain nuts." You think? Really? If someone didn't notice the ALMONDS on the front of the bag, why in the world would they see the warnings on the back? Also, the bag was clear cellophane. Clear. Even someone who couldn't read would notice that the bag was full of nuts. There is no common sense involved here, and no credit given to the consumer.


I read somewhere (can't remember where, now) that quite a few foreign visitors to the U.S. think that we must be a bit dim, because of all the labels telling us obvious things: caution, coffee will be hot; caution, moving sidewalk coming to an end; caution, may contain nuts. Basically, if we need to be told these things so often it doesn't speak well for our general intelligence and common sense. That we label everything towards the lowest common denominator isn't immediately clear if you're not already used to it.

On the other hand, labels can be very useful, especially if the alternative is to outlaw something completely. Take something like, say, pasteurization. The routine heating-up of stuff like milk, cider, and orange juice, to kill germs-- not bad in theory, right? Fine for most folks who don't want to think twice about their milk except to consider 2% versus 1%, regular versus organic. But there are plenty of people that would just as soon not have their milk scalded for a variety of reasons-- that want raw milk, yogurts and cheeses made from raw milk, or would like to buy unpasteurized apple cider with the enzymes and nutrients intact. It seems to me that those who want unpasteurized (whose ranks I may be joining) should be able to legally get it, somehow. Wouldn't a warning label be great for that? Caution: unpasteurized! That would be useful. I don't understand why I can buy cuts of grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken and eggs at the farmers market, but not fresh milk or goats' cheese. Why treat the entire population as though they're too dumb or uneducated to make those decisions for themselves?

The way around that law, incidentally, is to buy "cow share" from a dairy farmer, so that you're not buying raw(!) milk, you're paying a farmer to maintain your cow and periodically, you come pick up your milk. So much to-do, when legalizing the sale of unpasteurized milk would be so much more efficient.

I tired!

The summer squash has been sliced, frozen, and bagged. Ditto the green beans. The peppers have been flame-roasted, skinned, chopped, frozen and bagged. Leftover veggies and the carcass of a leftover roasted chicken have been simmered down to broth; chilled, skimmed, portioned, and frozen. The enormous bunch of basil became even more pesto (with walnuts because where are my pine nuts? Where? They are the most expensive ingredient that I buy and they are missing. It's like losing a bottle of olive oil-- the really good stuff.) which in turn became pasta salad for dinner which used up the cherry tomatoes. And a cup of pesto for the freezer, of course. And it's all neatly dated and labeled.

The pumpkin became pumpkin bread. The apples became apple pie. The overripe peaches are hiding in both the bread and the pie, disguising themselves as extra pumpkin and apple. They are the Scarlet Pimpernel of fruit, really. The bounty from the CSA and the farmer's market is stacked neatly in my freezer, and cooling on my table. Only two more weeks of CSA deliveries and I'm running out of freezer space.

Wondering yet how I spent my weekend? If my fridge goes out and ruins all of that food and two solid weekends of labor, I will throw a temper tantrum the likes of which have never been seen in these parts.

Being a member of a CSA farm has been really interesting, and fun. But I think we'll probably not do it next year. It was just too many veggies every week for two people-- produce was always going bad before I had a chance to deal with it-- and then it's Friday again, time to pick up this week's box. And while the variety was awesome, there's always going to be stuff we don't like, like eggplant, okra, and beets. Or maybe I just don't know how to cook them right or something. There's such an excellent farmers' market here that just going there every week would suit our needs better and essentially serve the same purpose: getting (amazingly good) local, organic produce and supporting local farmers. But we can just buy what we need for each week and not worry about how we're going to use two heads of cabbage before the next week.

Vegatables Attack!

Several months ago I mentioned here joining a CSA. I've been eagerly waiting for the first delivery, for our first box o'produce. Deliveries actually started while Don and I were honeymooning, so we got our first box Friday. I think I'm in over my head.

I signed up for a "half-share" on the strength that our household has only two people, neither one a vegetarian. It's the smaller-share option, half the veggies for half the price. Except that our "half-share" was a bushel of green. A bushel! Actually more than that, according to the box. With the exception of half-dozen eggs, it was all vegetables. Writing this from memory, we received:

Cauliflower (a huge head)
Broccoli (same)
Cabbage (same)
Swiss chard
Spinach-- except that it's actually "tatsoi"
Onions
Peas
Asparagus
Herbs-- basil, parsley

Completely overwhelming. I had no way to store it all-- no extra plastic bags, no muslin or anything. I ended up just stuffing it all into the fridge while trying to figure out what to do with so many leafy greens-- more vegetables in a week than Don and I eat in a month! OK, two months. Well, that was Friday. I've eaten most of the Swiss chard scrambled in eggs with onion. I've made a gratin with the cauliflower and broccoli, a quiche with the tatsoi and asparagus, and tonight will be a colcannon soup with the cabbage. I'm going to get some muslin and some plastic bags, research more recipes. On the good side, none of the veg will go to waste before Friday, when it will be time for another box (!!), but. BUT.

One of the major reasons that I decided to do this was to get more healthy veggie stuff into our diets, and as a culinary adventure-- new recipes!, yay. But so far I'm burying the goods in cheese, eggs, and bacon. With the exception of obvious "side-dish" veggies cooked up plain like the peas and asparagus I don't know what to do with vegetables. I am used to serving them on the side of something meaty or putting them in rich dishes, like casseroles and quiche, which defeats the point-- our diet is already rich in dairy and egg, thank you. I need to learn how to serve veggies in healthy ways. As main dishes, in salads, in stir-fries. Because there will be a bushel-box of fresh, organic produce every week and I have to be on top of it! We can't be eating a quiche every week, or cream soups. My primary motivation this week was panic-- don't let the good veg rot! But if I don't figure out what I'm doing, the whole project is for naught.


In other news.

My face is terribly broken-out.
I woke up very early this morning, needing to pee.
My dreams are crazy-vivid.
I feel thirsty all the time.
I'm tired during the day but alert at night.

I could be pregnant again. Or I could still be a little jet-lagged and living on vacation-time. And could be getting a urinary-tract infection. Or, just living in my head; psychologically manifesting the symptoms of my last pregnancy now that I know what it feels like. Really, it's hard to say and too soon to tell. But it sure is fun driving myself crazy with hope, fear, exitement, and panic in the meantimes! What a great way to pass the time until my period is due. Today's emotion is panic, brought to you by the letter B!

The Wedding Trip, Part Two

First, what is up with Blogger? I tried to lay my previous post out neatly, photos and text aligned, enough white space to make sense. It worked for the first part but by the end, it looked as though I had just thrown everything together. Nothing worked as it should have. I'm hoping this goes better...

After the wedding we stuck around Angel Fire a few days, to spend time with our families; especially Don's parents, whom he doesn't see so often and whom I'd never met until now. Then: in reverse! Drove back to Santa Fe, back to Albuequerque... Decided then and there not to rent a car in Seattle but to walk or take public transport. Enough driving for one week already. Flew from Albuequerque to Phoenix to Seattle. On the second flight we couldn't sit together due to the rather last-minute booking, (Hurry! Only 3 seats left on this flight! None of which are together, of course.) but were across the aisle from one another instead. Which would have been fine, except that the two seats next to me were occupied by not two but THREE people: man, woman, 18-month-old child.

Quick aside: I DON'T CARE that the airlines let you "carry on" any child younger than two. A big, rambunctious toddler needs his own seat. Period. This is not a small, sleepy infant that wants just to cuddle and nurse the whole flight. No, he wants to throw his sippy cup at the homicidal stranger in the third seat (me). He hit me in the head TWICE with his damn sippy cup, in addition to the expected screeching, screaming, maniacal laughter, and random sobs that come from a kid that age. I swear on this blog that when we have kids and travel, they will have their OWN seats, no matter how much it sets us back. So that I never have to simperingly apologize to strangers that my kid has just beaned in the head. Who happen to be on their honeymoon.

Don and I agreed to have many drinks ASAP after getting off the plane.

In addition to my brand-new husband, I am now IN LOVE WITH the following:

Seattle. The good news is that it is a wonderful city, everything that we expected and then some. The scenery is lovely; all blue waters, green trees, Mount Ranier hovering like a hologram in the distance. The people seemed so friendly, the nicest we've ever come across. Of course we were dealing mostly with service people-- hotel front desk clerks, bartenders, waiters--people that are paid to be friendly. Then again, there's no reason that they still couldn't serve as some kind of barometer for the whole city really. The food. Oh, my goodness. That deserves its own sub-header. The bad news is that now, we want to live there. Well, what's one more cross-country move, right?

Our Hotel. It was so cute in a rustic, welcome-to-the-Northwest kinda way. Totally touristy, totally kitch, but adorable and so comfy. It was walking distance (at least for us) to everywhere, and we could see the Space Needle from our balcony. The staff was so friendly; kind, even. Really, how can you not love a hotel that has a fireplace in every room and puts teddy bears on the bed?
Pike Place Market. Seattle's iconic marketplace lives up to the hype. There is a local law preventing any chain or franchise from opening a store here, so every storefront is unique: restaurants, specialty stores, coffee shops, bars. But the best part is the farmers' market; the produce, the flowers, the seafood...oh man. I have never seen seafood that looked like that. A foodie could go there every day and never tire of it. These huge bouquets of the freshest flowers, and they sell for ten dollars. When at the grocery store here they cost twenty, are half the size, and flown in from South America or somewheres. We walked from our hotel to the Market every morning for breakfast: a latte here, a piroshky there, a half-pint of raspberries. The original, very first Starbucks is here as well.

Elliott Bay Book Company. When Don and I walked into this bookstore, he turned to me to say, "Sweetie, the mothership has called you home." From the outside it looks small, or at least normal-sized, like a typical Barnes&Noble or Borders. But inside, it just goes on and on. Doorways lead to more rooms, staircases to lofts (the gardening/pets/ecology section had its own little loft); a result of expanding through the building over decades. Even the bathroom grafitti is hilarious: seemingly ongoing exchanges and conversations. It is without doubt the most wonderful bookstore I have ever seen-- and as Don said, that's really saying something. I wonder if the staff would notice if I moved in and set up camp in a corner somewhere.

Over the years we have changed each other's idea of vacation. He never used to consider bookstore-exploration as an integral part of a trip whereas I can point to at least one book from every vacation. I have adapted to the bar-hopping that he considers essential and am better off for it...

...and I try to appreciate things like drawbridges and big phallic monuments. (He never agrees that they're phallic, but it is so obvious.) We mastered Seattle's public transit system and got out to the outer neighborhoods like Fremont and the University Distric. Note to fellow poor travellers: that's where all the cheap food is! As well as the Troll. We took the Underground Tour in Pioneer Square, which explains more of Seattle's history than any of the guidebooks that I read, and even found a Lush, which is sorely lacking here in Virginia. The worst way to find a store, by the way, is to pass it on a bus and try to find it again the next day on foot.

Random observations: So many gardens. Gardens everywhere! Love the lovely gardens. Fruit. Fruit seems to grow willy-nilly all over the city. I saw strawberries on traffic islands; apple and cherry trees all over; raspberry and blackberry brambles that seemed to be growing wild. It's as though the area is so fertile that it will grow produce unless actually restrained. Tip jars. They all had clever captions or jokes.

Restless

First off, I love this book. It is my new favorite non-fiction-- what, don't you categorize your favorite books? Read it, especially if the concept of eating locally appeals to you. Or gardening. Or...yeah. Just read it.

I've been feeling so restless, lately. Perhaps it's the weather, perfect late spring here in Virginia; Texas sure didn't look like this. We got an email from our CSA farm, detailing the pickup times and dates-- although the start date of the season depends, apparently, on when the strawberries ripen. I love the idea of my kitchen filled to the brim with fresh veggies, and of 'having' to learn new recipes to deal with them.

I feel restless, partly because I'm being held hostage by my body for a little while. The Big MC was almost four weeks ago to the day, and I am waiting for "normal post-MC cycle no. 1", before we can start trying to make a new Grain-of-Rice. Except that we decided to retire that embryonic nickname, in the way that the jersey numbers of great atheletes are retired. There will never actually be another Grain of Rice, although Don has suggested Oat Flake for the next. (This is why the naming of actual children--as opposed to embryos--will not be falling into his hands.) If I were "normal", then my period would start tomorrow, and after that, full steam ahead on Project Oat Flake. As it is, I don't feel very PMS-y and there's no telling when it'll actually show up.

Perhaps the restless is because Don and I are getting married, starting a family. (I hope.) Big, life-lasting changes. But I want to settle down. I'm tired of the pattern of our life: move, stay a few years, move, repeat. We moved from Texas to Vermont not long after starting our relationship. My reasoning for that move was that I didn't want to get stuck in Texas, as anyone who's been to (that city) for more than a few days can understand, I'm sure. I was born there, raised there, was attending a university less than a mile from my old high school. I was entertaining a suffocating vision of graduating from that school, getting a job, buying a house, all in the same miserably hot, monotonous, boring city and its suburbs. Naturally, high-tailing it to a university in Vermont to study environmentalism and business was the logical response. And Don, blessed with wanderlust as he is, was willing to come along.

After graduating from that university we came back, even though I'd learned to love Vermont in those few short years. Because I missed my family. Because I was flying home two, three times a year to see my parents, sister, brother. Because the career possibilites for Don in his field up there were almost nil. But it only took another year and a half to get that suffocating-in-the-concrete-rimmed-heat feeling, the drowning-in-the-suburbs-blues. We discussed it, decided that if any advancements came to Don that would take us away again, we would go for it. We made a list of potential cities by looking at every place that his company had hotels and yes-or-noing it. Detroit, Houston, and L.A. all got nos. This town, among others, got a yes. So, we come here, to Virginia.

It's been about six months now since I moved, and I like it here. I like that any road will take you into the "country" within ten minutes. No suburbs. I like the smells: in the early morning, our front yard smells like maple syrup. We have a big old maple there, but I don't know if it's the kind that makes syrup, or if that's where the smell is coming from. It is intriguing. At various times, I've noticed the smells of clover, rain, gunpowder (last night, college kids celebrating the end of the semester), lilacs, honeysuckle, and manure-probably drifting in from the farms just out of town, like the one we now belong to. Having lived in Texas' Gardening Zone 8 and Vermont's chilly 4, I feel like I'm splitting the difference in the best way here, where it is possible to grow pretty much anything. A gardener's paradise, for all that I have nothing but four pots of impatiens and a tumbled mix of climbing green beans, nastutiums, and morning glories waiting to climb up their trellis. We planted all of those from seed, hoping to screen our front porch better from the road.

It's not that I feel restless to move again, but that I want to stop moving and put down some roots, for once. I feel restless to make some plans with permanence, to plant something other than annuals. If this place is IT, then lets get planning. House, acreage, whatever. If it's not, (because he is nowhere near as thrilled as I am, something about the job or whatever) then let's figure out where we want to go for all, and do that. I will be honest about something here, about the jobs. I don't see my job as a career, right now. If we ever successfully spring-off, my plan will be to quit the job or at least cut back to part time, and then have another baby, and then quit. I think that the whole 'Work--Don't Work' difficult-decision thing only applies to women who either make substantial money or who really get something from their work-- satisfaction, fufillment, respect, what-have-you. I make about 1/3 what Don does. I work at a job that doesn't really suit me, that doesn't do anything for me personally, but keeps me in lattes and health insurance. For me, it's a no-brainer that if I had a baby, I would want to "stay home".

Don and I both fantasize about country livin'. We both, independently, want a rural home, wooded lot, huge garden, chickens. Okay, maybe I'm the only one who wants chickens. I've mentioned this before, but the feeling has intensified lately, for all of the reasons above. The difference is that Don is okay with buying a house (if we can) and then leaving again soon, in two or three years. I want to stay. What's the point, if we just move again? Just to secure a nicer view, for the few more years here? But, his job and career come into play. There's nowhere for him to go around here, none of the career-advancing jumps that he's always itching to go for. One of the reasons we left Vermont, after all. He's not that thrilled with the position that he has here, and definitely wouldn't see this job as the top of his ladder. But in his industry, a new position means a new hotel, either within the company or not. He's already at the best hotel in this town, so a promotion means another move. And no promotion means a much-less-than-satisfied-Don, a frustrated Don. That's not what I want, either. But is there a solution at all? Convincing Don that he likes it here more than he thinks, that being further from town would make it so much better that he'll be happy to stay? I don't think that will work. Convincing myself that I'm fine with pulling up the tent stakes again, and probably again after that? That's not going to happen either. Somewhere in this mire is a compromise, I just don't see it yet.

So I feel stuck. As though I know that we're only here for another two years or so, but that there's not much I can do to change that, or to make it better. The possibility of returning to Texas always hovers, but... no. No more endless 8-lane highways, smog, sterile apartment complexes, drought, 100+degree summers for weeks at a time. It's just not worth it to live in a place that we dislike that much, even for a lower cost of living and better career options.

Community Supported Agriculture

This year, Don and I finally took the plunge and joined a CSA. When I say "Don and I", I of course mean "I" with some pestering and one-sided dialogue about ecology, local economics, supporting small business, the environment, and our health until Don finally said, OK Honey. It's a big step for us. It's about making decisions that support what we believe in, instead of choosing the easiest, cheapest path available.

It's one thing for us to mouth support for, say, environmentally sound practices. Or for small family businesses. For buying local and organic. For making our diets a little more vegetable based and a little less meaty. It's another to actually make a choice that's more than just a gesture; to commit a big (big!) chunk of our food budget to something like this. Don is all for supporting small farmers, and he's in favor of organically grown foods. He even agrees that it's worth making a financial commitment to those ideals. What worries him is that I'll be making him eat more vegetables... strange things that we don't eat yet, like "eggplant", "kale", or "Swiss chard".

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is a farming system in which small-scale farmers sell shares of their crops ahead of time to local consumers. So Don and I send a check now that is for the entire growing season of 2007. Starting in May we will get a weekly supply of all kinds of vegetables, fruits, herbs, even flowers, whatever is being harvested that week, until the season ends in late October. There are multiple benefits for farmers, consumers, and the community in general. The farmer gets guaranteed buyers for their crops and they get that money before the growing season when it's most needed, which provides a buffer against a bad season or a failed crop. CSA's tend to be small family or co-op farms that grow a very wide variety of stuff. Ours, for example, is offering dozens of different items, from strawberries in the Spring to garlic in the Fall. They also tend to be organic, or at least practice ecologically sound growing methods. Those qualities make the kind of farms that do CSA much, much better for the environment than the enormous, mono-cropping corporate farms that supply grocery stores nationwide. The two tenets of ecological eating are, 'buy organic' and 'buy local'... CSA's fulfill both, or at least this one does as it's certified organic.

Don's one requirement before signing up was that we actually drive by and see the farm, to make sure that it didn't just exist in Internet-land. It's about 20 minutes away, in the same county as our town. It's nice to think that such a large percentage of the food we'll be eating this year is coming from right here. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, since living in Vermont. I'm exited, jazzed that we're finally going for it. No more guilt-inducing Chilean tomatoes! No more spinach, bagged and shipped from California! I can't wait for spring.