Shh, don't tell anyone, but...

... I think Spring is here!
Taxes due, new birds in the yard, no snow currently on the ground or even predicted for any time in the next ten days, tree pollen, ants, people starting to bike to work, and glorious, glorious SUNSHINE!!!!

Yep, I'm pretty sure. Least until the next snow storm!
Houston, we have spring!

Blood Diamonds, redux

So, you think dying for mining coal is outrageous? Here's yet another reason not to buy gemstones:
75 Miners presumed dead in Tanzanian Gem Mine.

Seriously, people.

Come, labor on!

I went back to work today after a few really well-needed days off.... and it felt great. I really like my job, I like the folks I work with, much got done, and laughing happened. Amazing what a little holiday can do!

Tonight I found myself humming a tune: at first I didn't recognize it until I had hummed it through enough times to have a google-able phrase, and even then I googled "Come linger on." Which it is not, of course. It is "Come, labor on!"

"Come, labor on!
Who dares stand idle, on the harvest plain
While all around him waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say,
“Go work today.”

Come, labor on!
Claim the high calling angels cannot share—" etc.

Wow, guess that counts as a good day at work, huh?

Flipper

Okay, so that was kind of conversation killer. Sorry! If you have ideas, you can always bring it up later, or, hey, maybe I will.

To make it up to you, here's a feel-good story about a dolphin who saved a couple of whales from beaching in New Zealand. He just came right up, and helped them find their way back out to sea! It made me shiver to read it. Very cool.

Stranger in a Known Land, or Frontier Living

I've been thinking a lot lately about liminal space and construction of identity. Mine and LPs, mostly. It seems pretty complicated to me, and I'm not sure I've fully formed my ideas about it, but it's a theme I seem to cycle around to from time to time, so I figured I'd share the short version, and maybe cycle back here to expand next time I'm thinking about it.

Most of you know LP and I are an international, bilingual couple. That's one/ two? borders. We have each lived in each other's country of origin for significant periods of time. What we have noticed, and have confirmed as a pretty common experience with other bicultural folks, is that once you have truly crossed a border and lived in that other culture to the point of comfortably accepting many of the societal constructions of that place, you can't really ever completely come back home. That is, when you come back to the place you originally called home, it doesn't feel completely natural either. You have done irreparable 'damage' to your default world view. You can see why certain 'givens' in your culture seem silly/shocking/obscene to foreigners, because they now seem silly, etc. to you, too.

This can be a good thing, of course, but right now I am trying to get a feel for the size of the impact on a human psyche over a lifetime of not being able to go 'home'. Or maybe trying to figure out what two people can do in such a frontierland to create their own home(land?). But also, right now we are living in a few other significant liminal spaces as well, so it is perhaps more on my mind than usual. And I don't mean to say that it's horrible: it's just different, I think, from what I perceive most other peoples' experience to be.

So, if you feel like it, please tell me about your experience of being 'other' or of being caught between two worlds. Can people who share a similar experience meet up and be citizens of some combined no-man's land, even if their original border crossing happened on a different kind of threshold? What do you think? I have a practical/objective hunch that our situation is not as exceptional as I subjectively feel it to be, yet that assumption doesn't make it feel less real to me. Why should that be?

Open Letter to the Sun

Dear Sun.
Please come back. I hear from my friends in other places that you are doing well. I miss you very much and hope you will visit me again sometime soon.
Very sincerely yours,
Ursa

Learning to Lie

Neat article in NY magazine about how kids learn to lie. Interesting tidbit: the GW/cherry tree story works better for dissuading lying than the Peter and the Wolf story! huh.

A good read for all of you who are waiting to babies to get here. And just plain interesting for the rest of us.

Say something.

oh. /waves/ Hi. I've hit the deep winter phase of my hibernation, I guess. Although I *am* indeed noticing and pleased about the extra minute.some of sunlight each day.
(Yay.)

Let's see.... man, where are the bullets?

- needless snafus costing time and money during holiday trip? Check.
- utterly confused body clock, requesting more sleep please? Check.
- squicky icky winter cold, run out of Kleenex, nose rubbed raw? Ub,Cheg.
- icky picky work project-to-make-one-ready-to-spork-out-own-eyeballs? Check.
- stress dream about election fraud? Check.

Seriously. I think I had a dream about election fraud. Or you tell me. Maybe it was about sex. Hard to say.

The premise (but not the majority of the action) in the dream was that the government had decided that 10 states were no longer worth keeping. So, they were going to be burned up. Completely. Like, on a map there would just be a hole. And the earth would fall away of you crossed the wrong state line. But, my mom and I found out ahead of time. (They weren't going to tell anyone ahead of time to avoid the riots and mass exodus...) Anyway, most of the dream consisted of unpacking gewgaws and tchotchkes we don't have from a kitchen storage wall we also don't have, and trying to decide what should be brought along even though in this dream we had apparently also ceded the entire back seat of the hatchback (we don't have!) to a couple of friends, and maybe their baby? dog? stuff? we were going to help escape.

Friends, *everything* was tchotchkes. And every tchotchke had a story, of personal significance or historical/cultural worth. And so we, LP and I (where did my mother go?) and occasionally a neighbor, or really polite looter-- there were 3 or 4, passing through the kitchen had to consider the importance of bringing or leaving behind each item. Was it too big? too heavy? could it be used for something practical as well? was worth bringing anyway? What other items would it prevent us from bringing? And where oh where were the ziploc bags?

I can't even begin to unpack most of this dream. But, I am pretty sure that the background situation in it relates to the primaries going on RIGHT NOW! And, the fact that we still have not figured out the electronic voting/reliable system thing yet, and hey, elections are only NINE MONTHS AWAY! Are you concerned? I am.

If you are, and if you don't get email from MoveOn, go to Moveon.org to sign the current petition to light a fire under your representatives, so that maybe, maybe, we can trust the voting outcome this time around.

The right foot?

Ok, I think that the fact that I am doing this at early in the morning on New Years Day pretty much supports the geekitude theory. I hope this doesn't mean I'll spend the year doing stupid bloggy quizzes, but I couldn't resist.





Big surprise, right?

Huh.

I'm waffling between being fascinated and horrified by this. I think I'll eventually land on horrified. I mean, what a terrible thing to do to a good book. And who really wants an awful book taking up space in one's home? But right now, I'm enjoying browsing the site and imagining just the right recipient for various books.... I really like the cover design on this one (and I think I know the person I would give it to, as well):


Speaking of books, have recently finished Only Approved Indians, Jack Forbes. (Short stories) Meh. Some of it is good, but somewhat repetitive-not surprising? I guess maybe especially if you already have considered some of the concepts/issues brought up. So maybe a good primer for someone just starting to delve into Indian issues? Well-written, though. Maybe I just shouldn't have read it straight through.

Also read Trans-sister Radio, Bohjalian. Again, meh. Such bitty baby steps to talk about (in a slow-moving novel with mostly likable characters) some of the issues an M2F transsexual in transition might encounter. Not altogether an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon, but nothing too special, either. But again, it seems written expressly to avoid shocking. Maybe that's the point, and perhaps that's its strength. Still, I can't imagine someone with really conservative views picking the book up and giving its ideas a good listen-to. I had heard good things about the author, so was a bit disappointed. Maybe I'll give hum one more try.

Having a better time with A Fabricated Mexican, Rick Rivera, which is also a collection of short stories, and has a bit more detail, personality, and punch.

Have also been hitting the SF bookshelf at Project Gutenberg, which is great for cheesy SF you would otherwise come across only in a used book store or library sale.

I'll be away from the computer for a while during the holidays, living in RL pretty much exclusively. See you in the new year!

Cats and trees

Here's a site I found years ago, but was thinking of again, as I browsed the Drs. Foster and Smith site looking at cat trees. The basic, mass market trees are so expensive, and I don't find them very aesthetically pleasing, for the most part. But these people have created an original, whimsical and in many ways beautiful home full of what is basically primitive (in the sense of untrained) art that is also cat-welcoming, and fun. Some day, if I get to tinkering, something similar might happen at our house. Or something like what Smith Industries does with natural trees for catteries.

Good night, bike!

We have put the bikes to bed for the winter, as I do not fancy riding on ice or snow. I have, however, managed to walk to work instead of driving a few days lately. It's cold walking in the dark, but I think sometimes it's even safer to walk than to drive, when there is ice, or that not-quite-slushy snow that is really granular and slidey.

Here are some fun bikes I recently came across, trying to find out more about Schwinn e-bike dealers in the US.

Giant Electric Bikes. Just very chrome-y cool.

Xtracycle Sports Utility Bikes. Do the shopping. Bring along the kids.

Baksfiet Cargo bike. The Dutch solution for shopping with kids.

ZEM. The swiss solution for bringing the whole damn family along. C'mon, wouldn't you rather see Ahnold and Maria in this than in the H-bomb?

Very cool new bike shop in the wrong part of the country for me!

Those of you who follow activist art probably already know about this one. Canadian artist Michel de Broin gets arrested for driving his motorless artwork/car in Toronto... apparently by a cop who called in a backup patrol of bike police! This trial should be fun to follow.

Mmmm

Sitting here surfing, eating soft-boiled eggs and toast and drinking coffee. Four layers of clothes, snow bonnet, extra socks, blanket and kitty. It's finally snapped cold this weekend, but I'm feeling pretty cozy. I'm trying not to keep being a greedy American, cranking up the heat every time I start to feel chilled. Hence the polartec hat. Seems to work pretty well. Yesterday, I was hatless, but decided I would get up off the couch and clean something every time I got cold enough to wish for more heat. I got a lot done! Plus, there was sunshine! yay.

Soft-boiled eggs are comfort food for me, but not one I wish for often. My mom used to make them for me if I were home sick. But every now and then, I get a yen for them. Even so, I rarely make them, since I am very particular about what the 'right' degree of done is. And I usually get it wrong, so then it's more of a disappointment than a comfort. Today, LP decided hu wanted soft-boiled eggs, so it was a marginal risk to tag along, I guess. Now, hu said hu had figured out the perfect time/method for soft-boiled eggs. And I know hu likes them way more runny than I can stand. Basically, according to hum, the yolk must be completely liquid. For me, there should only be enough liquid yolk to barely coat the firm whites when you put it all in a little bowl and chop it up to eat with a spoon (which is The Best Way to eat a 'sick' egg). It's good if there is some yolk that is not hard, but not liquid either. So, I put my eggs in with hus (at boiling, which is not the way I learned, but as mentioned above, I stink at this, so why not go with the flow?) and left them 2 minutes longer. 2 'large' (but these were on the small side for large eggs...) eggs, in at boiling, for 6.25 minutes, then run under cold water enough to handle, peel, chop, salt and pepper, whole wheat toast, mmm.

I'm writing this down so I don't forget!

testing

Hi. I''m about to start fiddling around with some widgets here. Please tell me if they are annoying. And, yes, I understand they won't make up for lack of content. But, I'm still playing by the " if you don't have something nice to say" rule. So.

In Very Exciting News, we moved stripey cat's litter box out of the bedroom today. And she has been sitting near or on us off and on throughout the day. And she just had a very nummy dinner. Ours, less so. Enh.

Edited to add: meh, nevermind. *I* don't like the look of the widgets I thought I wanted, They're much bigger than I thought. Anyone have a good source for teetiny widgets?

So much to think about

But not much to blog on, I'm afraid. Most of my musings of late stem from meeting new people, and not really 'getting' them. I wouldn't mind having your input, but I'm not sure it's right to blog about other people if you don't have something nice to say....

It's not so much that I have not-nice things to say, it's just clear that a number of recent contacts of mine and I are not on the same page for a number of items, and I don't want to be judgmental, but deep down I think: I am, oh, I am. So, better just to let folks have the room they need to do things the way they want/need to. Right? But, wow, it never ceases to amaze me how different we all are out there in the world, despite also sharing many dreams/experiences. So here's me, trying to let people be. Because I really hope they'll do the same for me. doo de doo...

KTD minus 2. Wednesday is the big Kitty Transfer Day. I picked up extra litter, lint rollers, litter box liners, and baby wipes for the new/old kitty people. I still need to pick up food. I wish I could buy a vet subscription for them to make the first year check-ups and all less onerous. Does anyone know how to do that? I was recently in a financial class where the teacher said absolutely do NOT buy pet insurance: as things stand now, there is not enough competition between animal insurers, so they don't have to worry about establishing good stats, like say, low number of policies dropped after claims made.... So anyone have any other ideas?

Hibernate

ZZZZZ
Every year, I do this. It's ok, I just slow down in general for the next few months. This is the first time my work cycle has lined up with my body's cycle, though, so I will discover how that feels. Maybe it's good not to have to fight for more energy, maybe having something you have to get jazzed up for was good. I don't know. I do know I just generally feel pretty low energy this time of year. yawn.

Here are a couple more photos from the fall safari (That will be all I will post of them, since they seem to take a while to load):


I took the horsey shot (super zoom) for my nephew, then forgot to send it.

The grass is *still* green, even now that the leaves are gone.

Look at the great scar in the trunk of the tree in the foreground.

A forest path.

I think it's interesting that the BBC and CNN news sites had conflicting stories run about women, fat and cancer on the same day earlier this week. And I might blog about it if I weren't hibernating. Or I might blog about Sarkozy's visit to congress, freedom fries, and what it takes for a French president to 'connect' with Americans and why that makes me sad. Or I might blog about how I am taking a 4-day weekend (yay, need it).

Or I might tell you how I had a chance recently to visit a windmill/electric power creating place and how that was so cool (I have pictures, but I'm not sure they're worth sharing...we'll see.)

Or I might tell you about how I am trying to get ready to give back a loaner/refugee kitty we have housed for the last two years, since the real kitty mama can now do the parenting. Trade-back date is Thanksgiving week, and there are kids involved, so the kitty must go home. But she really is a sweety-pie, and I will miss her. But not stripey kitty. Stripey kitty will not miss her. at all.
g'nite!

A treat, a treat!

So here are some of the photos I took on that safari I was telling you about. Not really sure how to present them, but having trouble narrowing the choice down. So let me start with some close-ups today, and I will post some of the mid and long views another day. Most of the leaves are gone now.














Also a couple of links:

For an easy way to help fund free mammograms, (free to you, too),

.

For an easy and fun way to donate rice, grain by grain, play Free Rice vocabulary challenge. It's a wee bit addictive so watch out! Thanks to the folks on the boards over at CHE for this one.

And for those of you who are happy only with extreme cuteness, may I recommend the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee for some really wonderful kitten photography? (via Cute Overload)

RBOC Monday

• We got rid of all the beets. People lined up for 'em. I swear! Only kept one four-pound beet for us. Had to toss 2 beets b/c suspicious gouges out of them. Shovel mark? Rodent mark? We finally roasted our beet tonight and ate part of it in a salad.
• Also cooked lasagna, one whole small sugar pumpkin (couldn't cut it raw! We'll see how that turns out...) some other squash and a huge sweet potato. Cause, hey, once the oven's on, you might as well bake something, right? So we're covered for non-green veggies for the week, I think. Which is good, b/c we are both apparently feeling lazy about cooking and cleaning these days.
• Our neighbor found hus cat who had come home to the yard to die. I am very sad for hum.
• Apparently, in order to move to limit non-custodial parental visitation to the supervised kind in some states, the parent has to have physically hurt the child, not a current partner, and not a household animal. This is sick.
• Today, I watched a tree crew cut down and chip an entire ginormous dead tree. I know with some tree sicknesses you can't reuse the wood, but this was really hard to watch, even though the tree was already dead long ago. I just kept thinking, well *that* 4 foot diameter part of the trunk is gorgeous, surely they'll keep *that* part. And then, they would slice it up with their huge chainsaws and huck it into the chipper. This tree could have provided wood for a small household of furniture. Or many days of heating. I don't know where it will go. Where do infected wood chips go? Anyone?
• This also added to the regular construction noises we have been listening to at work for the last few months.
• Listening to music really loud on earphones doesn't really make the other noise go away. You just have loud music and construction noise together.
• I went out on a photo safari yesterday, and found out I now suck pretty badly at taking pictures. (I don't think I used to.) In my defense, it is hard to frame a shot when the ambient sunlight keeps you from being able to see more than vague outlines on the back display screen thingy. I guess practice and editing (choosing of shots, not necessarily editing the shots themselves) would help. It was a fun thing to do, in any case. I might show you one of the better shots later this week, if I have the energy to upload anything. And I might try again.
• Been reading a bit more lately, since work is less consuming this season. Sucktastic: Ex Libris. Decent plot and awesome characters, but too much lovin': The Changeling of Finnistuath. Pretty Good: Flora's Suitcase, and Paul Park's A Princess of Roumania trilogy, although dude, where did the plot go in the third book, and did you know your antagonist took over like the last umpty-ump pages of this story? Without really doing anything? Rein that puppeh back in.

That is all.

Holy Cow

That's a lot of beets!

We have a neighbor who is friends with a local farmer, who occasionally drops off excess produce. Most of it, they use, and happily. The beets, not so much. This is where we come in. We love beets. But, 40 pounds?!? And some of these suckers are almost as big as my head.

Well, my work is cut out for me. Last time, I'd guess we had maybe fifteen lbs. to dispatch. We had borscht, we had salads, we had beets in vinegar, we had vegetable soup with beets. All we could eat for about 2 weeks, until they were coming out our ears, and then there were still a couple that made it into the trash when we could eat no more and they had sat a respectable time in the fridge....

So, holy cow. What do I do? I guess tomorrow, I'll make the rounds of office workers and neighbors, to see if anyone else likes beets, although I'm doubtful I'll find anyone with as much commitment as us. Still, waste not, want not, right?

Wish me luck, and send your favorite beet recipes!

MIT's cool solar house

So here is a short blog action post about the environment:
As you know, I've been geeking out, following the Solar Decathlon (see links below) this week and last. MIT's team has made a house that is specifically designed for weather typical of the Northeast. So, yes, that's an entirely solar house that runs through the snowy winter, for those of you who think it isn't possible.

To meet decathlon requirements, the house must be "powered exclusively by the sun.... attractive and easy to live in. They must maintain a comfortable temperature, provide attractive and adequate lighting, power household appliances for cooking and cleaning, power home electronics, and provide hot water. These houses must also power an electric vehicle to meet household transportation needs." Sounds pretty good to me.

Here is the MIT team site, with CAD models.
Here is the page with photo tours of the final build of each of the teams.
Here's the link to current scores and standings, which update frequently. (MIT's not doing so well as of this posting, but hey, that was an ambitious project.)
Here's the page for video tours. They're pretty short, yet took a while to download for me, so I'm going back to reading specs and checking out the pretty pictures.

I wish they held this competition every year, instead of every two! And I wish they would give me one of the houses to live in and blog about! They're so cute!