THIS is the way to go

Several weeks ago, I blogged about Workers of the World Relax by Conrad Schmidt, which argued the social, physical, environmental, and political benefits of a reduced work-week.

This is a discussion of a company that has reduced the working hours of its staff to 4 days a week. Visionary and exciting. Take a read and be inspired.

On Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal

Tonight I have to recommend this article about what might actually happen between a john and a high-priced hooker, as many people have wondered what kind of sex act could possibly merit $3000-plus for a single encounter as in the Eliot Spitzer scandal. The answer, apparently, is not at all what you might think:

What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York's sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That's one helluva conversation. But it's what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse.

... [High-priced hooker "Melissa"] receives $10,000 per month, which usually translates into three meetings. "The last time I met him, I gave him a bath," she told me. "I told him he was the most sensitive man I'd ever met. I never tell him he's a piece of shit; I make him feel like superman." Melissa estimates that she has sex with him about once a month, but as often he will simply masturbate in front of her.

I'm not sure what to think about this, myself. Does this mean that some people are willing to jeopardize their families, career, reputation, finances, etc. just for someone to stroke their ego? Is being in the public eye or in the cutthroat business world so ego-eroding that the appeal of a compliant, obsequious woman is too great a temptation? Or are these people so successful primarily because of their ego-driven natures, and this is another symptom?

Contrary to many people, I don't think Spitzer is any less of a good person now than I did before. One of the biggest lessons for this is that I've had to learn in the past year and a half (over and over again, it seemed) is that some of the greatest, most talented people have the most destructive flaws. It doesn't excuse what they do - not by a long shot - but I can't deny the positive forces they can be as well.

(As an aside, these are always the most compelling people, because you can't trust them, ignore them, or totally discredit them - they are there goading you and making you pull out your hair and causing you to respect them all at the same time. They are Shakespearean.)

I wish Eliot Spitzer well. I hope he'll use this entire episode as a wake-up call and do what he has to do to make whatever amends he can to his family, and to examine and address what kind of emptiness there might be in his own life and heart for him to have done what he did. And I hope he somehow is able to pick up the pieces and resume some kind of public service.

Though it probably won't be via politics.

Memories of Korea: What's that smell?

This is a story about Korea that is not about Korea at all.

My boyfriend in Korea and I once watched the movie, The Ref, starring Dennis O’Leary as a catburgler named Gus. Great movie. Near the beginning of the film, Gus’ attempt to rob a safe is foiled by a couple of ingenious security measures, one of which is that Gus is sprayed with a liquid from within the safe, and he soon angrily identifies it by its odour as “cat piss”. Gus runs out of the house, evading police, but throughout the rest of the movie, as new characters enter the story and encounter Gus, inevitably they stop, sniff the air loudly, and ask, “What’s that smell? Is that cat piss???” It’s a hilarious running gag.

This boyfriend of mine had a male cat named O’Ginny (short for Miss O’Ginny, which should have been a flashing warning sign right there), whom he (VERY reluctantly) took in to the animal hospital to have neutered. Well, O’Ginny must have known that something was amiss, because on the way there he must have had a bad case of nerves and – um, soiled himself. Unfortunately for the BF, when O’Ginny got out of his carrier at the animal hospital, he immediately scrambled atop the BF’s shoulders for safety. Apparently the experience was a little messy.

A week or so after this happened, we were at work and I thought I would tease the BF a little, as I knew he was pretty vain. I stopped, sniffed the air loudly, and asked, “What’s that SMELL???”

“I do NOT!!!!”

Heh. :)

SOMETHING didn't work

Tonight I tried this Best Vegan Mac and Cheese in the Entire World ... Seriously recipe. (I just made half a batch, and added carmelized onions and sauteeed mushrooms and onions. It was kind of tasty, but totally overwhelmed by the flavour of soya sauce. Disappointing. Maybe I'll try it again someday and seriously cut back on just that one ingredient.

Help me feel better - what's your most dismal cooking flop??? Bring out your most aggressive one-upmanship tendencies, please!!! :)

Whenever I think my own life sucks

... I will think of this story, and realize it's not so bad.

Waitress

I watched this movie tonight. Through the first hour, I was sorely tempted just to turn it off - it was slow and had really awkward (but not funny) moments, and the most important plot developments were sudden, unexplained, and just improbable. And watching an abusive marriage? Not my idea of entertainment. Oh, and the pie names weren't nearly as funny as I'd expected. But Keri Russell is stunning in this movie (her radiant beauty and, yes, skilled acting, lift this movie far higher than it otherwise deserves). There are a few transcendent moments in the film, and the ending is almost exactly right.

Verdict: 2/6 pieces

Compulsive, much?

I took a vacation day today to go to an appointment and to renew my health card and drivers’ license. Thankfully, it all happened with remarkable efficiency, so I spent much of the day doing something that desperately needed to be done: organizing my cupboards.

Since I started doing a lot of cooking for myself, I’ve been doing a lot of grocery shopping, and storing things wherever there was space, and then, when not able to find (all of) them, I would go out and buy some more. The result? Eleven cans of chickpeas. Ten cans of black beans. Three six-packs of single-serving applesauce. Three bags of engevita yeast. Three bags of chocolate chips. Cans of mushrooms I didn't even know I had. Stuff I don’t even know how I’m going to use. On and on. Witness:

(Ignore the top shelf - I've got to do some rearranging there, so it'll look more impressive in a few days, trust me. Also, those cans on the third shelf? They are stacked three cans deep! The photo is cropped so you can also see the large number of bananas I have on hand, in various stages of ripening.)

This is stupid, right? It doesn’t make sense to have so much stuff when there’s no way that I can use it all any time soon. There is no black bean-chickpea-hoisin-chutney recipe that’s going to fix this.

At times like these, it would be really easy to blame my parents. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do! You see, I grew up in a hoarding household. We lived in the country (a scant two kilometres out of town), and frequent trips to the store were considered wasteful (in retrospect, this was environmentally friendly, at least). But more than that, my father had convinced all of us that another economic depression was imminent, and that we should stock up on necessities for the inevitable crashing of our economy. (If ever there was a reason to be a morose adolescent, that was it!) We had a big pantry with all sorts of storage space for every non-perishable item you could imagine. This is normal to me!

Today, I have my own reasons for stocking up. I like to buy organic, specialty products that are available only at a few locations within the city. None are in my neighbourhood, and are in fact out of my way. So I make the occasional car trip and load up.

But the reality is, even if everything I wanted were at the corner store, I’d still want to have an overstocked pantry. I'd feel ... naked or something without one. Perhaps in my next lifetime I’ll be a squirrel?

Terrible price for coal extraction

From the Toronto Star:

This is the new face of coal mining in Central Appalachia. It is called mountaintop removal. Instead of extracting coal the old-fashioned way, by burrowing, the mountain is extracted from the coal – blown up sequentially to reveal each black seam. Everything left over – trees, soil, plants and rock – is considered "overburden." It's dumped into the valleys below, filling them up.

Some say as many as 470 mountains in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia have been flattened this way. For the industry, it's a financial jackpot – fast, cheap and thorough. But for the mountains, and the communities nestled between them, it's war.

Their homes have been flooded, walls cracked, wells poisoned, streams polluted; their jobs have been forfeited, cemeteries unearthed and communities abandoned. Many suffer from early-onset dementia and kidney stones. And they've lost their ancestral home.

"We're mountain people. You don't understand our connection with the land," says Gibson, who traces his heritage back 120 years to this very spot. He had never ventured beyond the company store, halfway down the mountain, until he was 11. "We didn't live on the land, we lived with it."

How can the engineers, managers, and owners of such destruction live with themselves???

And for the love of all that's holy why can't we invest a hell of a lot more into alternative energy sources????

This day is done

It's been a long, intense, but incredible day, as it was my first day of my first Touch for Health course, and I have a lot of processing to do. In the meantime, this is a photo I took about a month ago. It's not the best, but I think it still captures some of the beauty of winter in rural Canada.

Oh the weather outside is frightful ...

Driving around the city this morning was a little tricky, but I have my groceries for the next few days and even got my car tested for its regular emissions testing so I can renew its license on Monday. I love this interchange:

Eclecta: So how did it do?
Mechanic: It’s a Honda, of course it passed.

Oh, and another one:

Mechanic: Did you just drive up that hill over there?
Eclecta: Umm, yeah.
Mechanic: Wow, only one other guy has been able to drive up that hill all morning!
Eclecta [with satisfaction and a little chest-puffing]: Heh!

Anyway, another snowstorm is hitting southern Ontario as I speak. The wind has really picked up since this morning, but since I no longer have to go out into it, I feel cozy and secure, enjoying looking out at the beautiful power of Nature and feeling very, very grateful. I have a couple of DVDs to watch, some sorting to do, some cooking/baking, some reading, some meditating, etc. so I could really be holed up here until June. It’s the perfect afternoon to putter and relax to the music by artists like Sade, Michael Jones, and Pink Martini.

I wonder about you, friends and Internet vagabonds, and how you’ll spend this afternoon, maybe holed up from the same storm, or in a place of the world where there is no storm. Wherever you may be, I hope you are safe, warm, and happy.

This man has the most beautiful spirit

One of the best posts I've ever read

I’m talking to you. I know you don’t know me, but I know you.

I want you to leave her alone, to stop this mess you’ve lured her into. To stop dangling the carrot in front of her face knowing full well that you aren’t enough for this woman, knowing full well that you keeping her at arm’s length only draws her in closer. I want you to man up and tell her to move on, tell her you’ll never deliver, because you won’t. Sunday crosswords and hands held tightly at the market and wine over dinner with friends – it isn’t in the cards. She will never meet your parents or be your date for the wedding you’ve talked about for the year, a picture of celebration and friendship you’ve painted repeatedly, although never with her in it. She will never see the Maldives with you and your favorite couple. You will never agree to hit the favorite haunts in her hometown.

There's more here.

Now THAT'S entertainment

When a video still makes you giggle just thinking about it on the way to work four days since the last time you watched it, you know that it's awesome. Or that my life is really boring. :)

Memories of Korea: My most outrageous acquaintance

One of the most interesting Koreans I ever met was a thirty-something businessman whom I tutored. “Ken” was nearly fluent in English (quite uncommon in the backwater town where we lived), and our “lessons” were one-hour chats at a table in his restaurant.

Ken claimed to have once won the “Mr. Korea” body-building contest. He said he had a photo of himself with Arnold Schwarzenegger to prove it, but I don’t think I ever got to see it (he mentioned it in passing only months after we’d known each other, and I left Korea shortly thereafter). Ken also claimed to have spent three years in Kenya working in the (illegal) import-export business. In addition to owning a restaurant, Ken also owned a study hall in the same town where hard-working Korean students could go after school (I know, this last bit doesn't sound all that interesting, but it's important for later, so don't forget it).

Shortly after taking Ken on as an English student, I noticed that he had an exceedingly short span of attention. He would look bored after 5 or 10 minutes of discussion on almost any topic other than sex. But whenever we spoke on that particular subject, I had Ken’s whole-hearted concentration.

To be clear, we weren’t talking about sex between him and me, just sex in general. I would ask him questions about some of the things I’d heard from other teachers and other students. Were sexually transmitted diseases really as prevalent among Koreans as I’d been told? (He said they weren’t uncommon.) Were there really such things as hymen repair surgeries, and people willing to pay for them? (Definitely, Ken said.) Exactly what went on in those rooms where two people could go to rent and watch a movie in total privacy? (Exactly what you think … where else were young people going to go???) On and on … he was up for it, so to speak. He sometimes confessed to me that he had cheated (yet again) on his girlfriend who lived in Seoul. (I was someone safe for him to confide in, because who would I tell?) It became clear to me that he had a sex addiction. And yet … I have to confess that in our lessons, I pandered to this addiction by returning the discussion to the topic because it was so clear that was the only thing he was interested in (and he paid well … LOL).

But the most colourful conversation we ever had was when I asked him about public baths in Korea. I had heard about them, but never been to one. I asked him what they were like, and he tried to describe them to me. However, he was somewhat vague, and explained that he couldn’t go to public baths himself, so he wasn’t entirely sure what they were like or what people did in them. Naturally, I asked him why he couldn’t go to a public bath. Again being very vague, he said he had some anatomical abnormalities that, if exposed to public viewing, might cause him to lose his study hall business, as parents would likely pull their kids out and not let them return.

I’m sure I hesitated, not really sure if I should ask about this abnormality, or even if I wanted to know. But suddenly Ken laughed and shrugged and told me this story:

He and his friend, as teenagers, wanted to be circumcised, but no doctor would do it for them. So one night they broke into a clinic and stole some anesthetic, and circumcised themselves. But apparently it wasn’t quite done properly. At this point, Ken started flipping through the Korean-English dictionary and came up with this word: FRILLY.

Even now I laugh and shake my head. Surely he was making it up. It’s one of the most outlandish stories I’ve ever heard. But it was almost too bizarre to be fabricated. Ken quickly offered to show me proof, and I declined just as promptly.

But now I’m kind of sorry that I did, because I’ll never know whether any of it was true … LOL

It wouldn't be funny if it didn't have some truth :)

Shared by the awesome Yvonne:

Memories of Korea, #2

During my first year in Korea, I taught a lot of university students, who were a lot of fun. From time to time, I would go out socially with them.

One such evening, we were sitting around a table in a restaurant, when the discussion turned to hair colour, specifically blonde hair. One of my students asked, hesitantly, if he could just touch my hair. I shrugged and said, "Sure!"

Tentatively, he reached out and lightly, gently touched my hair. Reverently, as if in awe, he said, "This is first time I touch blonde hair!!!"

I wonder now whether he ever thinks back on that moment, ever tells his friends about this western woman who was once his teacher, and how she had very blonde, very fine hair. Somehow - and I hope this won't come across as arrogance - I think he might.

Memories of Korea

On March 28^th, it will have been 10 years since I returned to Canada from South Korea, where I was teaching English. Wow.

People often ask me if I enjoyed my experience there, and my short answer is that I’m happy that I went. I had a lot of stuff going on in my life at the time, which Korea no doubt helped to precipitate, and I was really, really young experience-wise. I worked for people who were likely stealing from me or otherwise not acting in my best interests, and I had a relationship with someone who was an amazing friend but a really awful boyfriend, but it all came together to be a terrific learning experience, and I made some lifelong friends as well, so … overall, I am truly glad that I did this.

I have a lot of cool stories from that time of my life, but I have less and less occasion to tell them now. So I’ve decided to reach back in those dusty shelves of memory and bring a few out to share. Here’s the first:

But before I get started, a little bit of background: When I lived there, Korea was going through accelerated social change, but society was still very conservative and patriarchal in some ways, with lots of taboos (e.g., it was considered shocking and brazen behaviour for women to smoke in public, it was common and relatively accepted for husbands to have mistresses, etc.). I expect that many things are dramatically different today.

I used to teach civil servants in the city hall where I lived. The public health nurse was a spirited woman in her 50s who probably had her work cut out for her, but she had a lot of energy and was a lot of fun. One day, we were working on vocabulary, specifically the rooms of a house and the furniture therein. We were working through the furniture room-by-room, with me giving my students a chance to call out vocabulary that they already knew. Everything was going well and without anything noteworthy (other than the gratifying excitement of students developing confidence in their own skills) until the bedroom. That’s when the public health nurse yelled out “Condom!” as her contribution to the list of bedroom furniture.

Well, you should have seen the reactions in that room. The nurse was such a likeable, irrepressible person (no doubt seizing every opportunity to get her message across) and yet for her to actually yell out this word in mixed company??? The room convulsed in laughter. There were some 50-something men in business suits sitting next to her who actually turned away from her because they couldn’t look at her, even as they laughed because they were so embarrassed.

And the nurse sat there among the furor, enjoying her moment and knowing that she’d made her colleagues think a little bit more about safe sex. :)

New green smoothie

Today I made an awesome smoothie, adapted from this one at HappyFoody:

• 5 leaves kale (centre rib removed from each leaf)
• one lemon (peel removed, but lots of pith left for nutrients)
• one banana
• one apple (cored)
• a handful of ice
• approx. 1 cup of water

All blended noisily to perfection with my Vita-Mix blender. It was awesome!!! Yummy and healthy and very slightly tart.

Updated: I use two apples now, as it tends to be a bit too tart without the second one. Now it's perfectly yummy! :)

Food, cooking, Bob Loblaw's law blog :)

Last week was the first time in a LOOOOONG time that I brought my lunch to work every day and ate it every day.

I’ve been a little Suzy Homemaker lately. I've wondered about it, and realized that there are several reasons why:

• Without a roommate, I now have full access to all the fridge and cupboard space. This means I’m not limited in my supplies.
• With my new deep freezer, I’m not as painfully limited in my long-term storage space. I can make that big pot of soup and not worry about having to eat the same darned thing day after day until I want to throw up.
• Now that I have my Roomba, I’m spending far less time on other housework. Yay!!!
• I’ve been reading about modern agriculture and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and have decided to buy organic produce and products as much as possible. Since none of the food courts where I work offer any such guarantees about their food, I’m left to schlep my food in every day.
• I actually find cooking rewarding* and sometimes even meditative. Plus, I am just amazed at the countless delicious recipes that are veggie-friendly (and to think when I became a vegetarian I tried to resign myself to the fact I’d be eating boring food for the rest of my life!).
• There’s a lot of hidden fat in most food-court fare, and I *know* I can avoid 90% of the fat and still enjoy what I’m eating if I make it myself.

(*And to think that when I was growing up, I steadfastly refused to learn how to cook! Mind you, I think I was rebelling against my father's idea that all women should know how to cook. His argument that I should learn how to cook for when I was married was probably not the best argument to use on me, the poor antiquated dear. LOL However, I think even my cooking these days would not gain his whole-hearted approval, as it is without meat. I guess I'll always be a disappointment. LOL)

Today I made a chickpea gumbo that was divine. I froze most of it in individual portions, like much of what I prepare for myself. I find that if I have sufficient variety (say, a different soup for each day of the week), I’m quite happy to forego the food court. And now basically all I have to do is cook one pot of soup for freezing a week, and the variety is sustained. I’d call myself a genius, but it kind of happened without me realizing it. :)

The next step in my food-court independence is baking. I used to bake quite a bit (though nothing challenging or extravagant), but got out of it for several years. Now I’m doing a lot of reading about using alternative flours, healthy sugar substitutes like stevia, and how to reduce the amount of butter or oil that’s needed in some recipes. Baking is going to take more trial and error than my beloved soups, but ever since my last trip to Seattle (where I gorged myself on Lisa’s oatmeal raisin cookies without hardly a vestige of restraint), I’ve been craving baked goods on a daily basis. Not good for the wallet, the blood sugar, or the hips unless I find some healthy alternatives that I can make myself! :) Today I made oatmeal brownies, which totally addressed my chocolate craving (after the second one), but it was far too crumbly. I will try the recipe again sometime with a couple of adjustments, and I’m sure it’ll be terrific.

Okay, I’m done blathering. Sorry for the inane post. It must be quite the disappointment after the Matt Damon videos! LOL

I suddenly wish I were ******* Matt Damon

A weird thing happened after watching the video in my previous post.

When Matt Damon became People's sexiest man of the year, last year, I truly wondered if the editors were even coming in to the office any more. I mean, him? I didn't see anything extraordinary (although he always did seem to be a nice guy ... although we all know that being "nice" alone, sadly, just doesn't create much of an allure).

Now, though ... after watching him be such a goof and after he's made me laugh hysterically, I find myself thinking, Ooh, look at those muscle-y arms! and He has a nice smile! and Rrrrrroooowll!!!!

So yup, sense of humour does it for me. We now have proof. :)

Not for you, Mom

OMG I first saw this over at Zen's blog and just had to steal it and share it with everyone (except Mom and probably Aunt Carolyn too):



THEN:



I will spend a few hours watching and re-watching of these videos this weekend!

Bitching and moaning

In case you hadn’t noticed, Ontario (and Quebec, the Maritimes, and many U.S. states) have had a very snowy season this winter. Record-breaking, in fact.

We’re on the eve of March and generally by this time, people are “sick of winter” and “ready for spring”, but the additional snow seems to have intensified the bitching and complaining.

Seriously, the moaning and groaning among my friends and colleagues about winter is just getting annoying. I can understand the rightful whimpers of those who have to shovel heavy layers of snow after every storm, and there’s a small segment of the population who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (or SAD, one of the most fitting acronymns ever), but there are lots of people who don’t have such excuses and I quite honestly have little sympathy. I want to give these people a good smack and tell them, You live in Canada! We have winter every year! Get over it!!!!

When I was growing up on our family farm, we were to some degree at the mercy of the weather. Some years we had droughts, other years we had too much rain. There was nothing that could be done about it. Sometimes conditions would improve after a bad spell (e.g., rain after a long drought) and I would say to my dad, “Hey, this is good! It’s nice that the weather is getting better!” and he would respond back to me, “Well, just as long as it doesn’t rain too much or for too long, because then …” and I wanted to yell at him, It’s the weather!!! Just be happy, goddammit!!!! Why borrow trouble???? (There’s a saying that farmers are never happy and there’s a LOT of truth to that statement.)

As long as my life isn’t in imminent jeopardy, I tend to be really Zen about the weather. And truth be told, this part of the world is one of God’s fortunate places – no hurricanes, very few tornados, moderate weather, etc. There’s nothing I can do to control whether it rains or snows or is too hot or cold, so why stress about it? If there’s a drought, I enjoy the many sunny days. If it’s snowing, I revel in the beauty of the snowflakes swirling and drifting in the air and clinging to the trees. If it’s raining, its sound soothes me.

The next step in my personal development, obviously, is coming to accept that people, not just farmers, like to complain, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that either. :)

A good laugh - even if it repeats :)

Taxes taxes taxes!

Hey, I just started doing my taxes tonight AND I'm completely finished, even have my tax return already submitted electronically! (It helps that I had such a simple return, and the software is - dare I say it? - almost fun to use.) Now all I have to do is sit by with a catcher's mitt and wait for my refund!

Hmmm ... refund ... this is tempting ... I think I'm going to have to squirrel it away very quickly! Otherwise I might be tempted to spend it all on travel (to Europe, finally, and/or British Columbia, but also naturally Seattle ...) or on a new camera (Nikon's D300 is very tempting), or on an assortment of kitchen gadgets like a juicer, a breadmaker, and an electric grinder. But I also have long-term financial goals ... no doubt I'll do something very responsible and conservative with most of it. Some will certainly go to a good cause.

What about you? Are you expecting money or a bill this tax season? And if it's a refund, any exciting plans?

Eating out of her hand

Taken a week and a half ago. In a place that is magical to me.

I missed this too ... but it's well worth watching

He is sooooo awesome.

This is what I stayed up to see last night

... and then gave up and went to bed instead around 11:15.



Had I known I could find it so easily on the Internet the next day, I would have been in bed by 9:00.

Be sure to watch this clip UNTIL THE VERY END.

Jimmy Stewart - A Dog Named Beau

A co-worker told me about this one:

Saturday night recap

So last night I had a little party ... about 16 people came over. If you didn't get an invite, it was because it was for a very specific group of people, or you don't know the right people. :) It was fun!

At first everyone stood around the food table. They were all chatting, of course, in a way that gladdened by little hostess-heart; however there was lots of seating that was just looking lost and lonely, and I did feel some anxiety that my guests might become fatigued standing all evening. But the food was pretty good, and I think it's just natural for people to stand around the food (or congregate in the kitchen) at parties.

For the foodies in my reading audience, we had:

• lots of dips with crackers and slices of multigrain bread,
• lots of cheeses (there was a pre-fab cheese plate that I bought at a grocery store that in all honesty wasn't all that good [too oily - so I didn't mind when some of it was given to Milo], but I also bought some tasty dill-flavoured havarti and some other kind of goat cheese flavoured with blueberries and cinnamon that tasted like heaven!),
• a fruit cake,
• some yummy store-bought cream puffs,
• some delicious naan bread,
• tortilla chips + salsa + guacamole
• baby carrots and cucumber slices
  

Here are Perkin and Melanie chatting over some chocolate bread (!!!) brought by my culinary idol, Tania:


My parents just called and when I told them that I'd hosted a party for 16 people, their first question was, "And you didn't serve them any meat???" Uh, no. Was that a requirement??? :)

I ended up with an amazing amount of leftover booze, considering it was BYOB. Weird. Shannon brought me a bottle of wine in a fabric gift bag so beautiful that I am seriously tempted to hoard it forever in a dresser drawer or something rather than re-use it and give it away to someone else:


Here are Steph, Elliot, and Natalie as I disrupt their pleasant conversation with my camera for the sake of this blog:


From left to right: Jason, Lillian (yes, the Lillian who occasionally comments on this blog! Hi Lillian!!!), Pia, Grace Kelly, Shannon, and Jenn.


Finally around 10:30 or so, people started feeling confident that they weren't going to get stuck in a dead-end conversation and started sitting on the couch and chairs. Either that or they just gave up from exhaustion. :)

In the photo below: Are they laughing at something Elliot's said? (E. is off-camera to the left.) Or at Perkin's rebuttal? Verdict: Both.

(L-r: Lillian, Jenn, Jo, Tania (behind Perkin's hand), Perkin, Natalie, Melanie, Vitaly, Jason)

In the next photo: Perkin, Natalie, Melanie, Vitally, Jason, and a very pink Matt. (Dude, wear sunscreen!! One day you're gonna look like a raisin! And no, there won't be anything "distinguished-looking" about it at all!) :)


Same cast of characters, with one addition: Milo!


The canine of the evening:

Cheese, Mama? Cheese???

We laughed a LOT.


So I know there will be a few people who will inevitably ask how my cats dealt with the invasion of so many people (and one miniature Dachshund) into their environment. Well, they hid in my bedroom, mostly, and they were somewhat rattled. This morning as I ran my Roomba to pick up all the crumbs left around the kitchen table, both cats acted highly aggrieved, as if to say, When will all this disturbance END???? What can I say? Cats have delicate nerves. They've strapped on their eyemasks and slipped on their terrycloth robes for an afternoon recovery nap. They'll be all right.

Some lessons from the evening:

• You can never put out enough tasty cheese or guacamole;
• Every party should have some element of chocolate;
  
• I am so lucky to have such cool people to invite into my home for the evening.

Interesting

Another Obama music/campaign video. Has Clinton or Kerry or Bush or anyone else inspired this kind of thing? I'm curious. If not, it's even more fascinating ...

Quote of the day

"I can't wait until it's Obama vs. McCain.
It's gonna be Youtube vs. Feeding Tube!"

- Bill Maher

As seen on DailyKos.com

OMG so cute!

But I doubt it'll be so cute when the pup's a few months older ... LOL

Questionnaire

My friend Hassan first posted this on Facebook. My answers are in bold.

For any of you that have watched [Inside the Actor's Studio], you'll know that it usually ends with James Lipton giving the guests a questionnaire...


What is your favorite word?
- Equilibrium. Just saying it makes me feel more balanced and peaceful.

What is your least favorite word?
- At the moment, I can't think of one. I think words are pretty neutral, and it depends on the intent behind it.

What turns you on?
- A great sense of humour. Which is why Jon Stewart is HOT. (Incidentally, I see a great sense of humour as a good indication of high intelligence.)

What turns you off?
- Needy. I can't even stay in the same room.

What sound or noise do you love?
- Rain, babies happily babbling (Lorelai does this perfectly)

What sound or noise do you hate?
- People jangling change in their pockets. It sets my teeth on edge. I've had to mention this to my boss a couple of times because he's always jangling his change and it makes me want to leap out of my own skin.

What is your favorite curse word?
- Jesus. It's my rebellion against my religious phase. I really need to clean up my language.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
- something in the holistic health field

What profession would you not like to do?
- Work in an abattoir

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
- Welcome, friend. I've enjoyed all our chats!


Anyone else want to answer the questionnaire? I'd love to read your responses! Just click on the link to the comments! :)

Raw food challenge

Okay, as if vegetarianism isn't radical enough (and I know for some of you it seems WAAAAY too radical already), there are subsets of vegetarianism that are even more rigorous. Did you think that veganism (no meat, no eggs, no dairy) was impossible? Well, there are folks who take it up a notch with vegan/raw food.

I've been reading a bit about it, though not enough to be any kind of authority on it or its alleged benefits, but it makes sense to me intuitively (and as a person with a couple of university organic chemistry courses under her belt) that cooking denatures (read: destroys) many of the vitamins and proteins that are in the raw forms of fruits and vegetables*. So I've been trying to eat substantial quantities of raw vegetables lately, though I'm not certain that I would ever be willing to lead a raw food lifestyle. However, some people with serious health problems (e.g., diabetes) have been motivated to try it, and here's a highly intriguing video about a little experiment (trust me, you want to watch this video until the very end - it's amazing!):



* Yes, I am also aware that cooking actually renders some foods edible. Like I said, I'm not rabid about this or anything. But the video is certainly food for thought. (Sorry about the corny pun.)

Things I wish she could ask her 8-day-old baby

Too funny.

Soup/Casserole Exchange #2

Today was installment #2 of a little soup/casserole exchange some friends of mine and I have started. (I first wrote about it here.) It was again another successful venture. Check it out:


Offerings today:

• coconut-lentil soup
• beet soup
• cabbage rolls
• chili
• vegetable-barley soup

ALL vegetarian!!! :)

Furthermore, Alison brought a delicious loaf of homemade cracked-wheat bread - baked just this morning!!! And there might have been a teensy-tiny bit of cherry pie and vanilla ice cream for all near the end.

There are some unexpected benefits to organizing this kind of thing. For instance, Isabelle brought her lovely chili over last night, as she and Ryan had decided to visit her parents out of town this weekend. When she left, I realized that I still hadn't had dinner, had nothing prepared, and at least one of those dishes virtually had my name on it! Ta-daaa! Delivery! :) (It went very well with some black-bean chips I'd purchased earlier in the day, inspired [as always] by my sister-in-law Lisa.)

If you're jealous of me, I will understand. :)

The best name for a TV character ever

... is a lawyer (in Arrested Development, of course) is Bob Loblaw.

Sorry to all the lawyers out there, but that is funny!!!!

It's good to start a long weekend with a belly laugh

Keep in mind that the woman who wrote this also written (in the days before the second puppy, obviously):

People often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called Suffering From a Mental Illness.

Monday is Family Day

Here in Ontario, we have a new statuatory holiday coming up this Monday: Family Day.

I gag slightly I hear the name of this holiday. Seriously, there was no one we could honour (Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, David Suzuki, Jane Jacobs, Stephen Lewis, Margaret Atwood, June Callwood, even George Strombolopoulos?) by sleeping in and watching DVDs all day?

However, I do have something I want to say about this whole thing:

Dear long weekend,

Please get here as soon as possible. PLEASE.

Love,

Eclecta

Eyelid stickers

One of my co-workers sent me this link today.

After reading it, I put on my best dumb blonde look and asked him, "But how did you KNOW???"

Weird associations

When I walk down a sidewalk after it's snowed (why do I want to say "snown"???), I often think of pie crust. The appearance of the snow blending with the salt/sand becomes much like the flour/shortening mixture would first look like when my mother made pie crusts from scratch.

I realize that there is at least an entire generation that will have no idea what I'm talking about, but maybe someone out there will get it, assuming I'm not too far out there with the comparison.

So ... any associations you'd like to share?

Bizarre

This story reported by the Toronto Star is as bizarre as any episode of Arrested Development:

A man who stole a backhoe to break down the wall of a car wash to get at the coin machine was chased down by a snowplow driver and later arrested after police followed his tracks in the snow.

A wee contrast

Watch this one first:



Then this one:



Brilliant.

Acts of kindness

This is a regular feature of the Toronto Star, which can sometimes bring me to tears. Here are a couple of recent submissions that I think you might enjoy:

Many years ago, I had to travel to and from work on the TTC. It was not easy, as I had to also pick up my two children at daycare and take them on the bus.

One stormy winter night, we were on the northbound Warden bus when my 4-year-old announced he was going to be sick. We got off the bus at the next stop.

After tending to my son, I realized that there would not be another bus for a half an hour. We were not close to anywhere and the storm was getting worse. With a hungry 6-month-old and a diaper bag in my arms and a sick 4-year-old at my side, we began to trudge through the blowing snow.

We were half way home when an elderly man stopped his car and asked if we would like a ride. I was a little hesitant to get into the stranger's vehicle but my arms were aching and both children were crying.

The gentleman opened the door and helped us into the back seat. He then drove us to the door of our apartment building. I was so thankful I offered to pay him. He refused, saying that he hoped someone would help his daughter and grandchildren in the same way, should they ever need it. He had no idea how grateful I was for his assistance.

Barbara Yeo, North Bay

I am a senior and I use the TTC a lot and it was snowing heavily as I was waiting for the bus.

I saw a bus coming in the distance but alas, it was not in service. Much to my surprise it stopped and the driver motioned me to get on, which I did. It was only a small kindness, but to me it meant a lot.

Seniors tend to be ignored in our society and small kindness like these are few and far between.
Kathleen Matthews, Toronto

Arrested Development

I am seriously, scarily addicted to this show now.



I've got all three seasons on DVD and have been watching them has been like eating truffles (savouring each episode) and yet also like eating potato chips (hard to stop at just one).

Excellent writing, fabulous acting, and soooo friggin' funny. One scene, which continues to make me laugh out loud since I watched it on the weekend, is the one where Michael (Jason Bateman) and his teenaged niece Maeby (Alia Shawkat) sing "Afternoon Delight" at the family's company's staff party. They're just singing along, line by line, kind of getting into it, until the lyric "and the thought of rubbin' you is getting so exciting" makes it clear that "afternoon delight" does not refer to an afternoon at the amusement park, if you know what I'm saying. As a result, Michael is totally mortified and utterly awkward in front of his niece and his employees. "I didn't know it was so dirty!" he said of the song.

This scene is hilarious because it totally could happen. Years ago, I went with my friend Ryan to a karyoke bar where he sang "Rock DJ" by Robbie Williams, and there was some lyric about pimping or something that took Ryan rather by surprise ... I can just imagine what it would be like to be singing some song you didn't realize was so sexual with some member of your family, then when it started to sink in you might be both embarrassed and completely grossed out ...

Anyway, AR uses and twists notions of family to get some amazing comedy ... all perfect if you have an ironic sense of humour as I apparently do!

Drying out

I woke up in the middle of the night last night to try to dry out my ears.

I’m not quite sure how, but sometime over the weekend I must have dunked my head in a bucket of water or something, because I had this persistent sound of water in my inner ears (you know, the sound that’s like a cross between the rumble of the ocean and the rattle of a bag of chips, with the accompanying itch/tickle?). It seems bizarre to me that, despite the uncomfortable and distracting sensations of having excess moisture in both my ears, I can't seem to remember how it got there! Surely I should have noticed????

It was worse in my left ear, so I’d gone to sleep on my left side, hoping gravity would give me a hand. So at 4:30AM today, when woken up by my bladder, I first slid over, neck still twisted to the left, until I got to a box of Q-Tips. At this point, my cat Cleo jumped off the bed and slunk away to someplace where no one would be disturbing HER sleep, while I attempted the delicate extraction of water from my ears (which included crazy head-shaking in the hopes that the centrifugal force would help expel the water [and spare me any accidental puncturing of my eardrum] without causing me a migraine).

So if this blog post is dry, boring, lacking energy, or irrelevant, please remember – I was up at 4:30 this morning trying to swab water out of my ears and even my CAT knew it was ridiculous! :)

This seems like a pretty good idea to me

... but I'm not a parent. Any thoughts on this?

Ah, happy day!!!!

If I could embed this countdown clock in my blog, I would!

Perhaps the best cat photo ever

my cat's got chicken feet
Originally uploaded by pindec.

"Reecie, help me get this thing OFF my head!"

DSC_0014
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Oh, this photo will be kept for YEARS. :)

Big shoes to fill

DSC_0082
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

"Religion has no place in the banking or mortgage industry"

Really interesting article, but disturbing (though perhaps not surprising) that modern-day banks are willing to make a profit in this way.

Amazing journey

Okay, this news story is about a week old now, but hopefully you didn't hear about it yet so you can enjoy it now:

... he mistakenly picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport. Inside was 10-month-old Gracie Mae, who had curled up in her owner’s suitcase in Florida and ended up going on the ride of her life.

After being tossed in the car, dumped on a baggage belt, X-rayed by the TSA, piled in a cargo hold, flown 1,300 miles from her home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., dumped on a conveyor belt, taken for a ride on a carousel, and tossed into another car, Gracie Mae wasn’t in the best frame of mind when Carter opened the suitcase at his home.

The rest of the article is here.

The best things in life aren't things

DSC_0019-1
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Back home safe in Toronto. About 3 inches of heavy snow and ice waiting on my car, and a slow drive through a snowstorm to get back, but thankfully it was all without mishap.

I miss these two critters, though ...

Trouble with pants

DSC_0024
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

God, I hope this isn't an indication of his future fashion preferences.

Even more trouble with pants

DSC_0027
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Thank goodness for onesies!

Marvin the Martian has nothing on this cutie!

DSC_0052
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Cutest Facebook status update

"Loralie's son is hilarious. He went to a restaurant bathroom and came out without peeing. He said 'oh, I forgot. I was dancing.' Shania Twain was on."

Very pink post-nap cheeks

DSC_0045
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

The cutest

DSC_0033
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Live - from suburban Seattle!

Hi there, friends and Internet vagabonds,

So you might have guessed (or not, if you’re not a regular visitor) that I am currently in Seattle visiting my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. I didn’t make a big announcement about it because I didn’t want robbers to think they could break into my place while I was out of town. But then I realized:

1. I took all my “valuables” with me to Seattle;
2. My apartment is being guarded by guard cats – and they’re likely to be rather foul-tempered at this point.

So, yes, I’ve been in Seattle since late Saturday night (I arrived, made 5 minutes of small talk, and then went to bed), and leave WAAAAY too early Wednesday morning. On Sunday, the amazing Monika, Tracy, Jo, and Dave came over for brunch, and it was so great to catch up with them – they are so awesome. Highlights included the best-ever quiche and Monika’s literal re-enactment of her parents’ cat rolling around on the floor (the latter happened too fast for me to take a photo, and, sadly for this blog, she declined my requests for a re-enactment of the re-enactment).

Of course, the stars of every trip here are Lorelai and Reece, and they never disappoint. They are at such a fun age. Like I’ve told Lisa a couple of times today, it makes you feel sorry for the people who just have one baby at a time. :) Joe and Lisa are such wonderful parents and truly delight in these kids. I’ve taken quite a few photos that you can look at here – and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s been a full day, and I’m finding it difficult to write adequately how awesome all members of this family are. So just trust me – I am very lucky to be related to them.

I am baby, hear me ROAR!!!

DSC_0091
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Lisa and I had a good giggle over this one.

Babies for Barak Obama

DSC_0043
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Lorelai was particularly interested in Monika's Obama '08 pin.

Lorelai at one year

DSC_0075
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Reece at one year

DSC_0056
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Daniel Pearl Memorial Violins

When the American journalist Daniel Pearl went missing in Pakistan several years ago now, there was something about his photo that made me know he was a really special person. When I read his widow's book, A Mighty Heart, I understood why and realized that there were many other people who were drawn to this man and saddened and moved by his brutal murder. Maybe you, dear reader, were one of them.

Tonight I read an uplifting story about the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violins. It's here if you would like to read the inspiring and wonderful ways that people are keeping his memory alive and encouraging the values he held.

A bizarre rescue

But still, YAY!

Clusterf**k

I said it before, and I meant it. I mean it even more after reading this:

Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

Obama

Okay, a little while ago I got a little defensive on behalf of Hillary - you know which Hillary - because I think she's a decent, resilient, accomplished woman who seeks to serve her country despite really nasty personal attacks. Sure, she's not perfect, but no one is. And if she somehow happens to become the next President of the United States, is there really any question that things are likely to get better? I mean, it's not like the country could be run any worse than it is today ...

For a couple of years after 9/11, I used to be addicted to U.S. politics. I read voraciously and followed all the cool blogs, like DailyKos, Mahablog, TalkingPointsMemo, and the great Whiskey Bar, which is no longer updated, though apparently online archives exist. I loved the way these writers could make me think and consider perspectives that sadly had never occurred to me. As well, being a total square my entire life, it was pretty cool (in a totally uncool, geeky way) to know ALL about Valerie Plame and the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, etc. months before it finally - finally!!! - registered in the mainstream media. (My Uncle Ted did get a little prickly with me about the U.N. and weapons inspections there for a while, but these days he strangely doesn't mention it, perhaps because it's now clear to everyone that Iraq was a clusterfuck, and I use that word deliberately.) Eventually, though, after Bush was "elected" a second time (which still boggles the imagination, frankly), I just gave up. It was WAY too depressing to follow.

But things are turning around for the Democrats in the U.S. lately and it seems a little less optimism-depleting to return to those former blogging stomping-grounds of mine to read about the strong turnouts of voters to Democratic primaries and the strong polling numbers for their good candidates and just how good Republican candidates just don't want to be part of the Republican system long enough to get elected. [This doesn't mean that I think that all Republicans or conservatives are terrible people ... just their policies - especially those of the "neocons".]

But you know, probably the most interest- and optimism-generating feature about American politics today is Barack Obama. Say what you will about his inexperience and whether he's providing sufficient detail about what he'll do to enact his vision while in office, the man knows how to inspire and how to bring people together. Check out this video:


My favourite line is "I don't see black South Carolina, I don't see white South Carolina, I see South Carolina!") For some reason this is really powerful. I don't know if this man is overrated or not, to be honest, but I got goosebumps throughout this speech.

And tonight I read this anecdote from Bill Richardson, who at one time was also running for the Democratic nomination for president,

about how Obama saved him during one of last year's Democratic debates:

"I had just been asked a question -- I don't remember which one -- and Obama was sitting right next to me. Then the moderator went across the room, I think to Chris Dodd, so I thought I was home free for a while. I wasn't going to listen to the next question. I was about to say something to Obama when the moderator turned to me and said, 'So, Gov. Richardson, what do you think of that?' But I wasn't paying any attention! I was about to say, 'Could you repeat the question? I wasn't listening.' But I wasn't about to say I wasn't listening. I looked at Obama. I was just horrified. And Obama whispered, 'Katrina. Katrina.' The question was on Katrina! So I said, 'On Katrina, my policy . . .' Obama could have just thrown me under the bus. So I said, 'Obama, that was good of you to do that.'"

Barack Obama is a good man, perhaps even a great one. And now I can't help but watch and cheer him on.

Great blog posting

Kalisa just made me laugh out loud in her review of some film award fashion:

Diane Lane, easily one of the most beautiful women in the world, did herself no favors with this [dress]. When the space between your chin and your breasts is greater than two feet, you may want to rethink your undergarments.

Check here to see what she means. She's bang on!!! :)

Funny commercials

Thanks to Facebook and my high-school friend Fernanda:

Modern religion gone very wrong

From MSNBC:

The radical Baptist church known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq has announced that they intend to protest Heath Ledger’s stateside memorial service because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”

“You cannot live in defiance of God. He (Ledger) got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it's OK to be gay,” said Shirley Phelps in a statement sent out by the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Whatever happened to "Let he who was without sin cast the first stone"???

These people are hyenas in the guise of religious zealots. (And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of that statement. That still doesn't mean that it isn't true.)

We need to get this message

For the full-length film (20 mins) please click here.

A modern-day barn-building, kind of

Today was the first day of a cool experiment. A few friends of mine and I had a soup/casserole exchange.

Living by yourself can have some definite advantages, but one of them is generally not cooking. Most recipes make at least four (or more) servings, which can become a bit tedious when you have to eat the same thing day after day, just so that it won’t go bad. Sure, you can buy frozen dinners from god knows where made with ingredients of dubious quality, but there’s the disposable packaging, not to mention that they really don’t taste all that great. So … five of us agreed we would each made a pot of soup or a casserole (vegetarian and dairy-free), divide it into single-serving portions, meet at my place, and divide the spoils.

I made a big pot of potato-leek soup, which we shared for lunch and then split the leftovers. Melanie brought a Quebecois tortiere, which I had for dinner tonight – it was sooooooo good!!! Alana brought a curried squash soup (it looks so yummy!), Lori brought black bean soup in Mason jars (which started an exciting conversation about canning, more on that in a bit), and the indefatigable Linda dropped off her sunflower seed loaf and lentil salad on her way to a cross-country skiing excursion!

As we were hanging out this afternoon, our canning discussion led to talk about shopping locally and organically (for our own health and that of the planet, of course), so I think in the summer we’re going to do some cooperative canning! I absolutely love this kind of collaboration. “Many hands make light work,” they say, and it is SO true. This is the kind of community I want to foster, and it’s the kind of community I passionately believe we need.

I'm thinking ...

... that if chocolate could be counted as a vegetable, I would have such a balanced diet! :)

Watch with your speakers on

I'm betting it's a spoof

Thanks to Andrew, I have an awesome website to share: ConjugalHarmony.com. If you like The Onion, you will find this highly amusing. (Mom, don't even bother ...)

I have to ask ...

... Is being single really worse than THIS????

- Eclecta, bewilderedly

Grove Of The Druid

Grove Of The Druid
Originally uploaded by WordPainter.

Found on Flickr. Very cool. I love the contrast between the rich browns and the crisp blues.

Like Someone We Knew

I was paying at the counter of a store tonight when the clerk answered the phone and got some bad news. I couldn’t make out what it was, but she was shocked and sad, and after my purchase was completed she called a co-worker over. To my shame, my ears strained to hear as I strove to hide my burning curiosity over what might have befallen one of their colleagues or mutual acquaintances. Don’t ask me why I wanted to know this terrible news that made them so sad … I’m hoping it’s just human nature, the same way rubberneckers slow down traffic as they drive by an accident – you just can’t help connecting with those hapless strangers and their fate. Either that or I'm a real sicko. :)

Upon returning home tonight, I checked some of my usual web pages and gasped in shock at the headline that Heath Ledger was found dead today. I gasped in shock – like I knew him or something.

What is it about fame that makes you feel that you know someone? Looking back, I’m sure those clerks at the store were also talking about Heath Ledger as they talked about how sad and shocked they were.

He was a wonderful actor, as far as I can tell. I think I only saw one of his movies (Brokeback Mountain, which made me weep). And he was also a devoted father of his baby daughter Mathilda (okay, except for the name he gave her, which I think is a perfect name for a bulldog, not so brilliant name for a baby). I certainly knew nothing about him that should make me feel as though I knew him, and yet I am still sad.

In a way I guess it’s good to still feel sad when bad things happen to people you don’t even know. Empathy and such. Maybe famous people are famous precisely because they have the charisma or something that makes you feel like you can relate to them without ever having met them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Ledger.

Workers of the World Relax

Let me start off with my questions for you, my friends and Internet vagabonds, and then I’ll give you the background:

If you could choose to work 4 days a week (with a commensurate decrease in salary), would you do it? Why or why not?

If you did, what would you do with that extra day a week? And what spending would you be willing to sacrifice in order to afford that extra day off?

Inspired by Chris at TucoRides, I finally got around to reading the little book, Workers of the World Relax by Conrad Schmidt. (Isn't that a deliciously cheeky title for a book???)

Chris set the stage for an explanation of the book much better than I could:

A Vancouverite, Conrad was working away as a software engineer and driving his car to work, as so many on this continent do. Getting increasingly concerned with the environment, Conrad did some math and figured that the earnings from one day of his workweek went towards affording his car - therefore, if he gave up his car, he could give up one day a week of work. He talked to his boss, and voila, he was a man of three day weekends who was no longer sending CO2 emissions up into the air.

He did this for a while, and then his worries about consumerism's effect on the earth caused him to do some deep thinking about his job - "Even though I was earning a great deal, I wrote software and the software made junk, the junk went to landfills and the landfills polluted the planet. I quit my job."

In the book, Schmidt talks about the danger of consumerism to the planet (waste of resources, environmental effects of mining, lumbering, manufacturing excessive goods, etc.) but also makes points about how we often don't have enough time to be active, well-informed citizens and consumers, members of our local communities, etc., and how we have insufficient time to participate in the arts or music or parenting or cooking or gardening or any other form of self-actualization.

For example, Schmidt writes:

Education programs [regarding the impact of lifestyle and diet on cancer and cardiovascular disease] are not sufficient in addressing the problem because they focus on the symptoms of the problem and not ht ecause. Bad diets, high stress and lack of exercise are symptoms of high intensity lifestyles, where people do not have the time to prepare home-cooked meals, spend an hour a day exercising or getting involved in the community. It is impractical to warn people who are enveloped in stress to exercise more and prepare healthy meals on a consistent basis. There is simply not enough time … For us to realistically address the problem we need to make lifestyle changes a realistic option.

I would whole-heartedly recommend reading Workers of the World Relax. While I might not agree with every argument Schmidt makes, it’s very thought-provoking.

So talk to me: what do you think? What are your answers to the questions at the start of this post? :)

Soupy Sunday

This weekend, in the interest of making my own food more often (rather than relying on frozen dinners, food courts, or take-out), I bought a new mini-freezer. Then I spent ALL DAY today cooking four different (and delicious!) kinds of soup (two of them double-batches) and then separating them into individual containers, etc. to go in the freezer.

(I must mention that it was also a great way to use up some produce I had in the fridge; apparently my grocery store only sells baby spinach by the trough now ... )

So, you know what I'm going to do for lunch tomorrow? I'm going to march right on down to that food court, baby, because I cannot stand the sight of soup again for a day or two.

LOL but it's still true!!! :-D

Cold Sunday Morning

The wind chills but the sky is blue
Pedestrians wince against the cold
You can see it even behind the scarves and turned up collars
I’ve returned from shopping
With vegetables, fruit, and
A sweet-smelling multigrain baguette
That I will devour soon with brie and chutney
The light outside is clear, gently golden, slanting, and gorgeous
It’s a good day to be at home.

Loved the book, looking forward to the movie!

Comes out Feb. 29th!