Sunday, March 30, 2008

Waiting...


I am wondering what the possibilities are that the elections in Zim will, even remotely, allay the misery of the people who live in the most splendid of places, where the spray from the falls wets your face, and the verdant bush tickles your calves. I wonder whether there is a hope for Zimbo's, in and outside of Zim. And I wonder whether there is any reason left, anyTHING left, for Mugabe to continue on as President. Perhaps he is ready to leave office and let some other sorry bugger pick up the pieces of the lives of the 12 million people who are broke, starving, under or unemployed, who suffer from malaria and AIDS and TB and dysentery. There is so little left, and yet what there is, is HOPE. There are roads that men trod every single day, rain, heat, and chill, looking for a job, some job, a stray bill in a gutter, a chance for a life outside the misery. There are suburban houses that women approach, wary and hungry and just a bit delirious, looking for a job washing clothes or cooking or scrubbing toilets. There are back alleys where children pick through the cans, looking for a scrap to eat, a wearable sweater, shoes with laces. Is there a possiblility? Of COURSE there is! Of COURSE there is a real and vibrant chance for recovery, for generosity of spirit, for jobs and production and new crops to bring the country to a place of reasonable peace and prosperity - not full of HDTV's or cell phone towers, but a place where there is less death, less hardship and wretchedness. Where children go to school with shoes and books, and daddy's come home on the bus with a packet of milk for dinner and mama has been stirring the mealie meal sadza and the aroma of boiled meat and carrots mixes with squash... where the mountain mist lifts and the greens, dark and deep and light, take away your breath. And the tea you sip is grown on the farm next door, and the tobacco floors are loud and smelly and full of slapping and clapping. Where the line for the mill is longer than the line for food handouts. Where the village chiefs are more worried about equipment and stray goats than about how to keep their people alive another day, another week. I believe in the beautiful people, the strong lean Matabele, the solid, cerebral Shona, the incredibly resourceful, dogged,and steadfast muzungu who have lived and farmed, fled to and fled from this most marvelous of landscapes. I believe that they can do things for themselves, that they can learn and grow and build and pullulate prosperity, sing abundance, and find gratification in their world. And I know somehow, some day, I will see a happier time there. God bless, and may the results be those you want, shamwari yangu.




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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Holding off

I held off sharing this for a long time - its a little bit risquee, perhaps more than a little. I refrained from showing it to my daughter (and the 3yo as well). But the instant laughter it brings me is worth putting it up. With no more delay for you needing a lift ...



I hope you laughed! Perhaps some graceful soul will translate the announcer for the rest of us...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Ketchup on my lifeburger, please

So like a burger, my life can be. Squished between layers of fattening bread, is the meat of me, and in between are the nutritious bits, the spicy onion, the fibrous lettuce, the juicy tomato. Never quite enough of those, but enough for a nibble and a taste. :D

Some catch up of photos, first.

Icicles by the house, March 2008

Deer Tracks Albany Pine Bush trails

Cara on her 5th brithday. She's our neighbor!

Purple carrot we used in our Carrot Flower soup. It was SO yummy!

MBOY - outgoing.

Ori's new Hoodie!


This is how my kids sleep on weekends...geesh!

Beca blowing her first egg - she's tried before, this is the first time it WORKED! She was so proud. We painted an even dozen, and they were well received by the easter bunny.


International Pillow Fight Day

What's he looking for on Easter morning?


Egg hunt

Last time as a yellow belt! Congrats on passing you Blue belt test, Beca

A viking worthy of the horns.

I am working on some relatively serious healing issues, journaling, supplements, and chiro regularly. I'd love to find an acupressurist/puncturist nearby, but not really sure we can afford the cost at the moment...we took a big tax hit this year. Bummer. Gone are the days o a nice fat refund check...until next year! :D

Zami is doing really well, his meds have evened out his legs tremendously, and no nipping of little hands attempting to remove an ear or elongate his tail. All good!

JAC spent a couple weeks traveling this month, which means one thing...SPRING! We found tiny shoots in the garden today (hopefully daffodil), and will continue on yard clean up (didn't really accomplish much today), hopefully the spring -> summer lawn care is easy - still getting up the leaves from the end of winter is the hardest part, because they are all soaked and sticky and oopy and hard to rake.

Ooooh, I found a neat little warehouse place near Railroad St. in Albany, it has a ton of local organic homemade handmade vendors on the weekends, including a wine maker, a bakery/cafe, teas - including one absolutely delish one I tried called chocolate chai and another that was a Japanese green tea with flower blossoms...omgus was it AMAZING. What a great find! I also picked up a small jar of SUPER hot chili powder (not sauce) for JAC - hopefully it's hot enough for him to want to go check out the others (they make about a dozen different kinds, this one is called Chilihead. Can you hear me laughing!?

To make a children's garden, or not to make a children's garden, this is the question. It's been YEARS of not having a garden in this house - the land is SO hard to till, the voles and moles rip everything to shreds, the deer eat everything worth eating... it's all kind of a nightmare! But maybe a tiny plot just for ori to put in some carrots and beca some tomatoes? Hmmm...

Well, there's more, including all the delicious vegetarian dinners I've been making (tonight is a Chili with cornbread baked on top from Everyday Vegan), as Beca is now an ovo-lacto-pisco-vegetarian. It's been amazing learning new dishes, has really broadened my use of spinach and beans a TON, and I'm enjoying her confidence and enjoyment in the vegetarian world... but it's time I got back to laundry and dinner. :D Because these good juicy bits, well there's never quite enough of them...

Thursday, March 13, 2008

YES WE CAN!

The Yes We Can Song
by will.i.am


Let's all come together like America is supposed to...
Like Japan did after Hiroshima...

that was less than 65 years ago...
and look at Japan now...

they did it together...
they did it...

"We can't?...

Are you serious..?..

WE CAN!!!

Yes we can...
A United "America"
Democrats, Republicans and Independents together...
Building a new America

We can do it...
"TOGETHER"

Thank you for reading and listening...

will.i.am

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Thoughts from today

Interesting things from today...(yesterday excluded because of a bloody nose - that gets me outta pretty much everything).

Today I wasn't invisible! Two people made incorrect turns on the round about circle, but neither tried to kill US, so I suppose it's forgiveable. Someday people in this town will know how to drive on the circle... I gotta say, they didn't make this an easy one! Two lanes, some of which are forced to exit, others forced to continue around, and in some cases, cars that have just entered in the outside lane can go straight through, but the inside lane cars have the option to exit, cutting straight into the outside lane people. All quite ugly (and the fault of the design/building company, not the lame drivers). I did call and complain, but as I said, no one tried to drive into us today, so it's all good. :D

People signaled today. Really, like the fella coming down 85 towards me, he signaled that he was turning into the supermarket, so I just toodled right on down 85 without slowing down for him. YAY!

People waited. Like really, they waited! It's unheard of around here for people to get to a 4-way stop and actually WAIT. It's more of a game of dare - whomever is willing to inch their way up past their corner furthest, and then ZOOM across the intersection fastest gets to go. Today, people waited. :D

And Lisa posted this on DF today, which really cracked me up. What a hoot!

From the Stuff White People Like website:

* #87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
* #86 Shorts
* #85 The Wire
* #84 T-Shirts
* #83 Bad Memories of High School
* #82 Hating Corporations
* #81 Graduate School
* #80 The Idea of Soccer
* #79 Modern Furniture
* #78 Multilingual Children
* #77 Musical Comedy
* #76 Bottles of Water
* #75 Threatening to Move to Canada
* #74 Oscar Parties
* #73 Gentrification
* #72 Study Abroad
* #71 Being the only white person around
* #70 Difficult Breakups
* #69 Mos Def
* #68 Michel Gondry
* #67 Standing Still at Concerts
* #66 Divorce
* #65 Co-Ed Sports
* #64 Recycling
* #63 Expensive Sandwiches
* #62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
* #61 Bicycles
* #60 Toyota Prius
* #59 Natural Medicine
* #58 Japan
* #57 Juno
* #56 Lawyers
* #55 Apologies
* #54 Kitchen Gadgets
* #53 Dogs
* #52 Sarah Silverman
* #51 Living by the Water
* #50 Irony
* #49 Vintage
* #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
* #47 Arts Degrees
* #46 The Sunday New York Times
* #45 Asian Fusion Food
* #44 Public Radio
* #43 Plays
* #42 Sushi
* #41 Indie Music
* #40 Apple Products
* #39 Netflix
* #38 Arrested Development
* #37 Renovations
* #36 Breakfast Places
* #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
* #34 Architecture
* #33 Marijuana
* #32 Vegan/Vegetarianism
* #31 Snowboarding
* #30 Wrigley Field
* #29 80s Night
* #28 Not having a TV
* #27 Marathons
* #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
* #25 David Sedaris
* #24 Wine
* #23 Microbreweries
* #22 Having Two Last Names
* #21 Writers Workshops
* #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
* #19 Traveling
* #18 Awareness
* #17 Hating their Parents
* #16 Gifted Children
* #15 Yoga
* #14 Having Black Friends
* #13 Tea
* #12 Non-Profit Organizations
* #11 Asian Girls
* #10 Wes Anderson Movies
* #9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
* #8 Barack Obama
* #7 Diversity
* #6 Organic Food
* #5 Farmer’s Markets
* #4 Assists
* #3 Film Festivals
* #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
* #1 Coffee

Although I feel like it isn't good for the world to separate us all out, and it isn't better for anyone to say that something is FOR white people (EVER), I gotta say the writing is FUNNY and I did enjoy it, overall.

All in all, I laughed and felt visable today - so I'll call it a good day and move forward.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

In the Company of Vegetables

Well, it's happened. Rebecca, aged 9yrs. 9mos. (almost) has declared herself a vegetarian. I gotta say, it's not surprising - I actually only hope for her sake that she can STAY a vegetarian after the first bacon and pancake breakfast that JAC makes... that's likely to be the breaking point. She did eat chicken noodle soup the other day, too - though it was the craptastic Lipton stuff in an envelope, so the actual amount of chicken in there is so small it's hardly worth noting. Anyway, she'd been doing great so far! She ate a wonderful black bean soup I made today (as long as it's pureed, she'll eat pretty much anything lol!), and tried the hot egg salad (which was awful) too. She had totally veg. lunches M and Tu this week, and tomorrow and Thursday I have some good stuff planned. Dinner tomorrow will be fish, since she is willing to eat fish. Free range only, of course. :D

We've been doing a LOT of company visits recently - you know, there's this amazing thing about company. They invite us back. Interesting part, is although I don't like going, and sometimes flake (though I send the others), I do actually mind if we aren't re-invited. Not a lot, mind you, just a little chuffed off feeling. Well, in some cases it's taken 2 yrs. to get back together with some people, and in other cases, we were never invited back to their place. Not sure if we have bad breath (collectively?) or if there really are rude people out there. Anyway, we had Nieves and Dennis over with the kids as well as Mindy and Jason 2 weekends ago - a big vegetarian FEAST was made, enjoyed and devoured by all. This weekend we are having Tim and Megan over, that will be FUN and then the weekend after Michou and Ed and the kids. So it's busy, and fun, and I am enjoying making interesting new dishes. For sure the 2 best cookbooks I have are the Celebration of Wellness and Full of Beans (courtesy of Tasha :D ) which is sponsored (of course!) by the Ontario Coloured Bean Growers Association. Can you see me laughing!!!

In other news, we have our new iMac! It's really brilliant, and we've got a couple new games to go with it (I decided to get them because almost none of our old ones work on the new Intel processor Mac, so I got them when I returned iWork, after being told I'd be able to use the Office program I installed on the MacBook, but now I can't FIND the discs for that ... still looking), and the kids are totally digging it. We did get KidPix, and both of them like that. Not as wonderful as Ori's drawing today, which was very creative and fun! He said it's a picture of himself, and he has a head and neck, eyes and nose, body (with spine haha!), arms and legs. The legs are made from green painter's tape, and there are a couple of colors in the drawing too. I was VERY impressed! I will try to scan it into the new puter and get it on here - not that anyone ELSE will think he's a Picaso in the making!

Life is busy and good otherwise - all healthy and feeling like we can handle the world. Beca passed her Blue Belt test this week, and I started rewrites on the short story I hope to enter into a competition later this spring. I'm nearly finished with the hoodie I am making for Ori, and all in all it looks like a first attempt, but pretty and soft and maybe he'll wear it. :D