Sounds better than miscellaneous.
The VERY important question posed to me this morning:
“I am going to put the basket on top of the car, and load all of the suitcases on it. Would it be classier to wrap each one, individually, in a contractor bag or cover the entire thing with a blue tarp?”
For some reason, my Standards Manual for the Good Taste Challenged, doesn’t actually cover this scenario.
Okay, so after many, many conversations and articles and debates, and then after reading this in today’s Chronicle, I finally have to ponder out loud.
Being a parent means – among other things – having to live to a higher standard. In particular, there is an acute awareness to live to a higher health standard. It starts when you are pregnant. All of a sudden you shun the otherwise unhealthy things for the sake of your precious unborn child. Wine? No way. Tuna? No way. Caffeine? Um, sometimes – BUT JUST SOMETIMES! Better diet, more protein, less fat. It is inevitable that you begin to wonder how is it that you are not worth all these healthy and wise decisions, yet your child is. This continues on even after they are born. You don’t skip making dinner just because you are tired. You make something, and you even put out the effort to make something that includes at least 2 of the food groups. Then there is the question of teaching them to care about what they eat. As foodies, it is hard to avoid the question about the (other) Big O. Yes, Organic. And therein lies my current conundrum: What is organic? How much does it matter? Is it simply that there is just a bigger message that needs to be taught?
There is the obvious: Just because something is organic, doesn’t mean it is healthy (organic sugar – yeah, still sugar…sorry about that). Then, there is the more subtle: Just because something is organic doesn’t mean we are forgiven for all of our otherworldly food sins. Organic has become a negotiable term. The bigger issue, instead, lies in our ability to think, learn, understand, and not just believe.
Steve and I have been working through this process ourselves, and are lucky enough to live in an area with an abundance of locally owned food purveyors. Food purveyors that focus not just on slapping an “organic” label on everything, but in supporting the spirit in which the word “organic” was derived: local, seasonal and healthful, with an eye towards humane practices and environmental impacts. We have a newly remodeled, and GIGANTIC Co-Op that opened here in Eureka just a couple of weeks ago, another natural foods store that is in the process of relocating to a new (and larger) building, as well as two more in Arcata. We have an amazing Farmer’s Market that runs Memorial Day to Thanksgiving, 5 days a week throughout the region. Ever conscious of quality and price, it is not uncommon for us to shop at 2 or 3 stores for our weekly groceries.
Price. This, truly, becomes the point at which the hard decisions have to be made. We have set an unofficial hierarchy when it comes to buying organic. Milk & eggs – always. Meat – as much as possible. Everything else – on a case-by-case basis. As you can see, there is quite a bit of wiggle room in our un-erring set of standards. We have spent a fair bit of effort (and money) trying to figure out the best way to feed ourselves well, with high quality, healthful food while also ingraining these ideals into our lifestyle. One thing we have realized is that it will be what we do – far more than what we say – that will have a lasting impact on how our children relate to food. And it is plain ridiculous to undervalue the importance of how kids relate with food. Read the news. Look around. Go ahead, try explaining to a three year old why there exist foods that have ZERO nutritional value, foods placed on the second shelf from the floor – taunting them with their fun colors and recognizable characters.
Yes, we let Stella eat M&M’s™, however the idea that someone would actually eat an entire bag of them is completely lost on her (eating 2 of them is still a magical experience for her). We talk about food that is considered a treat and what that means. Even juice provides a certain amount of tingly excitement. This, because she could consume an entire gallon of Raspberry Lemondade in a single sitting.
Steve and I have divided evenly on the fast food debate. Although once a great conniseur of everything South of the Border (burger joints always held a distant second), I have found myself not only disinterested, but also just plain disgusted by the standard fast food fare. The argument usually goes that Steve defends the “comfort” quality of a drippy, gooey burger, whereas I argue that if I am going to consume all those sinful calories it is at least going to be a good quality burger – one that actually tastes good. I am then going to pair that with big, homemade onion rings and not gross little french fries that leave that creepy grease feeling on the roof of your mouth. This is a debate wherein we will probably forever agree to disagree (but I am right).
Without sounding too cliché, I guess the answer is that there are no answers. The best thing we can do is keep paying attention, and focus on the logical.
To (good, healthy, local, organic, seasonal) food! We eat it, we feed it to our kids, we share it with our friends and because of that, it’s well worth the effort.
My parents arrived mid-afternoon on Friday, and from the moment they stepped foot onto our property, they were either given responsibility in tending to one of the Walstonlings, or directed to the nearest waiting project. In less than 48 hours we did stuff we have only been able to dream about…
New backdoor:
Fountain repaired:
And the mother of all projects: the garage can, once again, fit two cars… AT ONCE!
Although it was exciting to get such high visibility projects taken care of, there was one project that stood out as important above all the rest: securing the toilet to the floor.
As you may or may not have noticed, my ability to keep you all updated on the various goings-on in our lives has lately been a bit spotty. For example, I never got around to telling you all the story about the evening I leaned over to throw something in the bathroom trashcan, lost my balance and fell against the toilet, SCOOTING IT SIX INCHES ACROSS THE FLOOR! Let me just tell you that, when it comes to moments in your life where the first words entering your mind are Oh Shit! this is one of them. (no pun intended.)
As it turns out, this whole episode wasn’t all that shocking to my father, who informed us that when the toilet was reinstalled after the new tile floor went in, the existing bolts weren’t really long enough anymore, and they think they may have gotten one of them to barely grab while tightening everything down. Um, I looked it up and “Toilet Not Securely Bolted to Floor” is definitely a need-to-know piece of information.
Naturally, the procedure to fix the toilet involved Steve crawling under the house so that he and Dad could secure it in such a way that the next homeowners will have to wonder what, exactly, we did in that bathroom. Two wax rings and about 25 flushes later, we have a toilet that – should our house ever be swept away by a tornado or hurricane – will remain standing along with the chimney and foundation.
As an extra bonus, when Steve was under the house he was able to do a quick survey to make sure those pesky rodents weren’t under there, and proceeded to go Medeival on that crawlspace entrance:
I am fully prepared to hear them out there with little jackhammers and reciprocating saws in the middle of the night.
A hearty Labor Day salute to the grandparents Anderson for the expertise, the tot wrangling and the old fashioned heavy lifting on this, one of the most productive weekends we have experienced in what seems an eternity.
Okay, so activities of late, coupled with this article that I stumbled across this morning made it clear to me that it is time for the next installment in my ongoing Urban Wildlife series. (For those of you unfamiliar, feel free to catch up on Part I, Part II & Part III.)
Before I go any further, let me just point out that if any or all of us turn up missing you will know that we have probably been eaten by rabid raccoons.
Now, as you may recall from our previous episodes, we had virtually wrapped our entire house in hardware cloth in an attempt to eliminate any additional animals from cagefighting to the death underneath our bedroom floor. And for good measure, while we were at it, we also used the remaining materials to reinforce the hedge that forms a barrier between our house and the neighbor’s house. This was done in an attempt to either reduce or (hopefully) eliminate traffic on the expressway that had formed between us and our neighbor. The response to this particular action was a bit mixed. Some animals simply opted to go around to the front of the house, while others used rooftops to move from one property to another. For whatever reason, our backyard has become the epicenter of all neighborhood mammal convergence. It’s like Rosie has been out stapling flyers to telephone poles inviting everyone within a 2-mile radius. Something in large font reading: B Street Extravaganza – OFF THE HOOK!
Not to be deterred, something has been repeatedly trying to dig under the wire. So we put the wire underground. More digging. So we covered it with a big piece of railroad tie. More digging. So we inserted a big stick in the ground next to the railroad tie. More digging. BRING IT ON, YOU FURRY LITTLE MENACE!!
And then, AND THEN! As if to say, “Oh yeah? Well take THIS!” it burrowed under the crawlspace cover AND BACK UNDERNEATH THE HOUSE!!! Do I need to remind you that in the last 6 months we have had to pull a dead, oversized rodent (possum) from under there?
So, not only do we have a SKUNK (Steve finally saw the culprit while retrieving a middle-of-the-night bottle) back underneath our house, and a POSSUM (also witnessed in the backyard, cornered by Rosie) but we also have THIS little creature who has managed to find it’s way into our yard for the last two nights straight:
Unlike the rest of the jaded and lethargic neighborhood cats who have taken over our yard, this one is a fresh and playful kitten who wants nothing more than to be the willing participant in all of Stella’s abuse.
What? Are youn new? NO! we are NOT keeping it. (Reminders why can be seen here, here, and here.
Yesterday we came to the realization that Steve’s precious Hot Rod Neon is not going to make it much longer. Even though this has been a painfully obvious fact to me, he has had a serious case of denial. Nevermind that the gas gague doesn’t work, the auto door locks are intermittent, the rear defrost mechanism is broken, the stereo doesn’t work, the left blinker goes on when you hit the brakes, the headlights have a defect that makes them fog up from the inside and it has an oil leak which has allowed him to not have to change the oil (only add new) for the last 50,000 miles. The only thing it has going for it is that you can get, like, 150 miles to the gallon.
His optimism that the car would last us for another 2 years was noticeably tempered when he had to be jumped twice yesterday in a matter of 10 minutes. Yes, it is probably just a battery issue, but both of us are in agreement that – for all of its flaws – there is a sort of harmonious environment that has been created within that car, and once that environment is breached with any kind of repair, it will set that environment off-balance, and the whole system will begin to shut down. Once we break that oily seal that is holding everything together, pieces will probably start falling off.
The thought of getting a new car isn’t that bad (except the shopping and buying part – I’d rather chew off my own arm then have to deal with a car salesman), it is getting a new car payment that is where the real pain begins. Throughout the course of our entire relationship we have never had a car payment, so how fitting that the same month we take on a new car payment we also take on a new day care payment. And so we began brainstorming: wouldn’t it be great if car dealerships would allow you to cash in all your miscellaneous cash-value items like gift cards, lottery tickets, coffee stamp cards and McDonald’s bucks?