folk art beauty

My eye is drawn to folk art. I love this example, by Danita (she goes by her first name only), an artist in El Paso whose shop on Etsy can be visited here.

The title of this work is "Never leave home behind."

Good advice.

Two ways wonderful

Click here! http://www.freerice.com/

Your children (or you!) can have a few minutes of fun, improving your vocabulary skills (wonderfulness #1) and then, for every word you answer correctly, corporations donate 20 grains of rice where it's needed (wonderfulness #2).

Thanks to Melanie for this (and a million other things).

Wag the Dog.

I'm not (for once) actually thinking of dogs right now, but rather of this evocative expression. My friend Melanie recently told me a story about clover, which is yet another example of instances when the wealthy and powerful didn't have an ideal circumstance, so they created it. I realized that I now have something of a collection of these, which I share with you.

1. Clover. Prior to the 1950's, grass in one's yard was a rare thing. The most common ground covering was clover, and people liked it in their yards. It's a lovely deep green color, once it takes root it's extremely hardy, it tends to edge out other things so you have good coverage with it, it takes little water to be happy, it takes nitrogen from the air, not the soil, so it's not soil-depleting the way many grass varieties are, and it's a helpful plant for friendly, honey-producing bees.
But. Herbicides were in development in the 1950s, and try as they could, they couldn't come up with a chemical that would kill weeds, but not kill the innocuous, broad-leafed and therefore susceptible clover. The answer was to reclassify clover as a weed, and now the only hurdle to mass sales of herbicide to private home owners was to convince them that clover was, indeed, an enemy weed. A nationwide ad campaign was launched regarding the danger of allowing your babies to frolic in bee-harboring clover. Within ten years, no one's yard had clover, and almost every one's garage had gallons of herbicide.

2. Breast milk. Until the 1930s, every child born in the US was breastfed. In the rare event a mother couldn't or wouldn't breastfeed a new baby, a lactating relative would typically do the job, or a hired wet nurse. Some housekeeping books from the era included a recipe for "infant formula," the primary ingredient being usually Karo syrup, which worked okay in a short-term emergency. A company decided to market the Karo syrup formula, and sales were all right, but wouldn't sales be better if mothers could be convinced that the formula was actually better than breast milk? A nationwide ad campaign, which later became a worldwide ad campaign, ensued. Mothers were convinced. Breastfeeding was almost completely wiped out in my generation. When people realized that the formula companies claims were patently false, breastfeeding rates surged again, but to this day they are scandalously low, and dangerously low in developing nations.

3. The Chicago River. At the end of the last century, Chicagoans had a problem--their river was so polluted, sludgy, and disgusting that it smelled. Rather than reduce pollution, city leaders decided to reverse the flow of the river. And they did. In 1900, they completed a canal (which moved more earth than the more famous Panama canal project 10 years later), which ingeniously flushed the Chicago River in the opposite direction. Now they got their clean drinking water from Lake Michigan (billions of gallons a day), and their waste water moved on down the Mississippi. This was a great thing for Chicago. This was not such a great thing for St. Louis.

4. Street Cars. A few years later, horse-less carriages were invented. They were fun and fabulous for the very wealthy, but automobile makers could clearly see that they were not going to become the mode of transportation for the populous. This was because cars were very expensive to buy and operate, and, even more notably, the ordinary citizens of American cities had their transportation needs met: by street cars. Or called trolleys in some places. They were efficient and universally used. Need to go to another city? People took the train. Until a few automobile manufacturers, some of the wealthiest people in the country, purchased street car lines and train routes and purposefully and systematically tore them up. Need to buy a car now.

Question for today: what story are we buying right now, that makes perfect sense to us in this moment, is actually a crazy example of the tail wagging the dog to further some one's nefarious purposes?

Dover publishing--good stuff

I'm a fan of Dover Publishing. Dover books are, by design, very inexpensive, and they cover a huge variety of topics. Their children books, both for reading and for crafting, are wonderful to behold. But they've got stuff for grownups, too. They also produce an extensive collection of clip art--beautiful. I'm on an e-mail list with them, and about once a month they send me news of their latest in clip art, along with a few free samples (pictured here). Good fun. You can sign up by sending an e-mail to DoverEditors@doverpublishing.com. Or check out their website for yourself here.

In honor of Earth Day

Here's website that it appears everyone has discovered but me--until now! It has a very young, urban, hip feel. I feel a little bit of a visitor from another country on this site, but I still love it. Have a look around. Happy Earth Day!

http://treehugger.com/

Artist Trading Cards

Have you encountered this phenomenon? I think I know some creative souls who would really enjoy being a part of this. Google "artist trading cards" and you'll come up with lots to look at. I like this one: http://www.artjunction.org/atcs.php

Story of the little house, continued

If you've been reading this blog since, oh, more or less the beginning, then you may remember that there's been construction going on across the street from me. There was a little brick house there, a 1950's ranch that matched, exactly, every other house on this street. But the old woman who lived there, Carmen Wilkenson, a retired elementary school teacher, reading teacher, children's book author (as far as I can tell, a kindred spirit and I wish so much I met her) died just before we moved in across the street from her.

Her house was accidentally flooded by its negligent caretakers, and unsalvageable, it was demolished.

Then the construction began. Once it looked like this.

I have to tell you, it's been a long six months for the neighborhood. While there wasn't anything especially surprising about the constancy of loading, unloading, trucks, people, and noise, a few things have surprised me. There have been a great many crews--the roof guys, the siding guys, the garage door guys, the wall board guys, the landscaping guys....and on and on. Some have made more of an attempt than others to restrain their noise and presence in our neighboohood. When it was cold, the indoor crews started their generator around 7am, and it stayed on until 7pm most nights, along with their bright, bright lights. Some have parked right in front of my house, eating lunch in their car, doors open to get air and block the sidewalk, talking loudly and occasionally spitting. Some have taken more notice of us than others, stopping to observe my coming and going from my car. Once I stopped in my living room, idly thinking of something else and observing the growing house outside our picture window, when I realized that a member of the crew was likewise paused, and staring right into my window. We were having something of a staredown. I thought I'd wait him out, remind him of who was at work and who was in the "privacy" of her own home. But, after a second or two, I turned first. The most recent crew, the landscape guys, have brought along with them a radio and have appointed themselves the neighborhood DJs. Needless to say, I'm so glad to see that they seem to be nearing completion.

I took this photo a few minutes ago. And yes, that's a toilet on the front porch of the new (million dollar) house across the street. There's something about that toilet that spurred me to write this rather whiny post. Why couldn't they leave it in the garage? Or in the entryway? Could they throw the neighborhood a bone and try to keep a semblance of aesthetic grace? I hope it's a joke, something meant to get a laugh from another crew member, and not just complete unconsciousness.

Whining now complete. We'll now return to our usually scheduled programming.

Live Maps: almost unbelievable

I've had a lot of experience house hunting, and before that, my parents had a lot of experience that I observed. You used to look at maps and do a lot of intelligent guessing and wondering about what the neighborhood was like, and of course you'd have to look at your perspective house in person.

Bird's Eye view on www.livemaps.com (other sites have it, too) is changing that. You can type in the address of a house you're considering, click bird's eye, and you're looking at an UNBELIEVABLY close up satallite photo of your future home.

And that's not all. Hit a few more keys, and you can spin the house around. Does it have a patio? Well, let's check that. Fully fenced? Just look and see. Is there a sidewalk all the way to school? Pan out and have a look. Mystery solved.

Case in point, I have not seen the house that my husband and I have recently bought in Beavercreek, OH. This is not driving me crazy, though, because I've studied it on bird's eye view from every angle, I've studied scores of digital photos of the inside of the house, I've scrutinized housing descriptions and inspection reports until I have it memorized. Heck, I have been there to see it.

Anyway, even if you aren't searching for a house, I bet you and your children will enjoy Live Maps. Look up your house, and then look up the Great Wall of China, Niagra Falls, the Space Needle in downtown Seattle, the Washington Monument....you get the idea. It's pretty addictive.

And it still feels pretty unbelievable.

Friends

I met with a friend for a drink tonight--she is a wonderful person, and one of the reasons moving out of state will be very hard. She is also going through a huge amount of stress in her life right now, and I wish I could be more present for her, instead of wrapped up in my own moving stuff. Talking with her put me in mind of another friend I have here who will be painful to leave. Then I started thinking about friends I've had at past locations, and thought about my track record of keeping in touch with those friends, as I always whole-heartedly intend to do.

Pretty good, but not so good as I'd like.

How much supervision?

This woman's point of view really interests me. While the adventure she allowed her 9 year old son is beyond what I would have allowed, I do truly get what she's saying. I'm striving to find my own balance on the topic of how much freedom children need. I'm aware that I have fallen into a pattern of seldom letting my children do anything on their own--not always because I'm genuinely concerned for their safety (they are both sensible, aware kind of kids), but sometimes, if I'm really honest, because I'm afraid for myself, of the shunning reaction from other parents if I cut them loose on a mild adventure with boundaries, the kind I had in scores as a child. To summarize, I was not always in my parents' line of sight. Far from it.

Check this out: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thinking of her often, lately

This scanned-in, slightly blurry photo of Schultzy is wonderful, but in real life, her eyes were even more intense and soulful. She hasn't been in our lives for many years now, but I find myself thinking about her a lot as we prepare to get a dog. We are, more or less, trying to replace her, which we repeatedly remind each other we'll never be able to do.

I've just learned that a friend's neighbor's red, smooth dachshund is going to have puppies, which will be ready to adopt at the same time we'll be leaving the state. Now, it really makes more sense to get to where we're going, get settled, and then get our dog, but being able to see this litter, get to know them and pet them and let our dog get to know us before we adopt her away--well, that is extremely tempting.

And besides, I won't pretend there is anything sensible about getting a dog. It's totally is decision of the heart.

Deconstructing a hug

I'm reading The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell, zoologist and applied animal behaviorist--which means that she helps people with dogs with serious behavior issues. This is sort of a doggie training book, but mostly a sophisticated, philosophical look at primates (us) and canines (our beloved pooches), and the biologically-wired differences in how we communicate--but then how to see the world a bit more as your dog does, to help diffuse communication problems. I'm enjoying it immensely. I came to it to learn more about our doggie-to-be we're going to get this summer, and I'm ending up learning more about my own species. Go figure. For example:

"We humans love to hug. It's called "ventral-ventral" contact in the primate literature, and chimps and bonobos love to do it, too. They hug their babies, and their babies hug them. Adolescent chimps hug each other, and so do adult chimps when they're reconciling from conflict. Gorilla mothers and their babies are great huggers."

She goes on to explain how canines DON'T like hugging, they don't get it, and only the ones who REALLY love us will deign to put up with it. I think this stock photo conveys this perfectly. The woman looks happy and relaxed, hugging a dog she loves. But the dog isn't getting her message "I love you." He's getting, "I've got my paw over you and therefore I'm dominant over you." He loves her and he's a good dog, so he's patiently waiting for it to be over, but you can see on his face he's not relaxed.

Mamas, hug your babies! It regulates our heartbeats, it raises our seretonin levels, and darn it, it's hard-wired into the DNA of our species. I think I'll go engage in a little ventral-ventral contact with my primate offspring right now.

Glockenspiel in a jazz standard! Really!

LOVE it that this singer, Sara Gazarek, uses a GLOCKENSPIEL in her jazz recordings! Play this (click on the "I'm Old Fashioned" audio) for your Kindermusik for the Young Child students, parents! Ah, how inspiring.

LOVE it that Gazarek got her start in a high school jazz ensemble.

LOVE it that she's from Seattle.

LOVE it that this recording was made at KPLU, which is on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University, which is a hop and a jump from where I graduated from high school in Tacoma, and where my friend Megan went to college.

LOVE it that KPLU makes out that it's in Seattle, which is much more hip than admitting that it's in Spanaway, a suburb of Tacoma. Lots of Tacoma people do that when talking to people from other parts of the country, who they don't think are paying close attention. I've been known to do it myself. :)

off season soup

My friend Paula gave me this recipe for Winter Lentil Soup awhile back, when it was still winter, but I just got around to trying it last week. And, I don't care if it's spring! I don't care if it's the dog days of August! This is a great soup and I thought you should have the recipe, too.



I pureed it, in order to disguise what was really in it for the smaller diners at my table. The one who is a little bit picky downed a bowlful, and then a second bowlful. The really picker eater managed to eat quite a bit balanced on the end of crackers. So, that's an unqualified success around here. I think I might like it even better if it weren't pureed, so I'll do it sometime like that, too.



Thank you, Paula!

Winter Lentil Soup

4 leeks, white and light green parts only
2 bags of pre-washed spinach
1T. olive oil
1 28oz can whole tomatoes, drained
6cups water
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into a 1/2 inch dice
1/2 cup brown lentils
1t. fresh thyme leaves (or 1t. dried)
2t. kosher salt
1/4t. black pepper
12 fresh basil leaves

Wash leeks and slice them into 1/2 inch thick half-moons. Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add leeks and cook for 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook, breaking them up with a spoon, for 5 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Stir in the sweet potatoes, lentils, thyme, salt, pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. Mix in spinach and sliced basil. Serve with grated parmesan cheese and bread.

Music essentials, essentially

Hey, found a website for you! It calls itself Essentials of Music, and it attempts to organize, classify, and index classical music. It's terrific. It strikes me, looking through it, that it doesn't seem to get the meaning, the emotion of the pieces that are famous and time-tested enough to make their list...but really, that's quibbling. They've done their cataloguing job admirably. It's really handy. They also do some selling on the site, but I'm interested in their info. Take a look.

Your five senses live in the present tense

A good and wise friend of mine recently said to me, hey, don't move before you move.

Oh, I'm not! I said. But maybe I am, and at least I know exactly what she means. It's something to guard against. Partly because I do still have a few good months to live here in the shadow of my nation's capital, but also because there is a larger lesson for me to learn here. If I'm too absorbed with the future (or with the past, oh yes that too), then the present can scurry by quite unnoticed. And since the present has two small beautiful children, and good friends and many other things--Springtime! for example--then missing it would be SOMETHING, even if the future looms large.

So, I'm trying to slow down and live it. I'll let you know how I do.

Love 101

When I was eleven, my mother, brother and I used to gather around the TV on Sunday evenings(we were living in Sacramento at the time), and watch the Leo Buscaglia lecture series on PBS. I remember it so clearly! His lectures were based on his sociology course, LOVE 101, that he taught at USC for years. He was often known as "Dr. Hugs," because he was completely unabashed about expressing love to everyone, and he encouraged others to do the same. He was a wonderful speaker, writer, and thinker, and I think having him as a professor would have been life-changing. He died of a heart attack in 1998, and I love it that his quotes are still circulating around the internet, 10 years later. I hope they'll continue around the circle forever. Here's a recent quote of his I came across.

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt." Leo Buscaglia