Current Quandary

Once upon a time, in the dark ages which ended just days ago, we had a well. Actually, we had several, one after the other, because they kept drying up. The latest well started off pretty good, as wells go. It pumped clear water, but at a very slow rate. (As opposed to a previous well that pumped iron-orange water but lots of it.) Our well water was even safe to drink, though we couldn’t stand the taste so we used Polar water for that. (By the way, our well pump didn’t look like this - but my grandmother’s did, back in the day.)

We took great care with our friend the well. We spaced out the laundry over several days. Ran the dishwasher only when filled to maximum capacity. Past on planting annuals and let the lawn turn to straw. Even skipped a daily shower if we didn’t smell. But still, after a while, our cistern started to repeatedly run dry. (Imagine standing in the shower, shampoo in your hair, and the spray reduces to a stream…then a dribble — you frantically try to rinse the remaining shampoo out of your hair — and then … the water … disappears.)

So we built a 5,000-gallon holding tank, to store up the slow accumulation of precious liquid life. Now we had water when we needed it (as long as we continued to conserve, of course).

But then, slowly, there came the rotten-egg smell of sulfur. And stains in the toilet bowls no matter how often we scrubbed. Then I began noticing a black residue left in the tub, and I honestly wasn’t that dirty. Soon after that, I noticed a similar sooty ring around the top of the walls in the bathroom. (Remember Amityville Horror?) Sulfite was solidifying in our hot water tank and being turned into steam. (Boy we felt clean, bathing in that.) We tried filter system after filter system, each one reducing the water pressure but not the water problems. We wept for the well and worried what was happening to Mother Earth to cause her water to wither. And we wept for ourselves and the predicament we were in.

Then one day, two princes visited our land. They were excavators, the cousin Koziks, and our friends. “Let us help you,” they said.

And so they ran water lines over a mile long to connect us to the closest source of public water. It cost us a king’s ransom (even with the friend discount). But now there is great joy in Long Land! For the water runs clear and strong (though no longer free).

We promise not to waste it. We vow to use it wisely. And we pledge to pause for a moment of gratitude every night, when we brush our teeth without tasting rotting eggs.

The End.

P.S. This week’s CSA bounty: Patty pan squash, sweet corn, black raspberries, onions, romaine lettuce.

This, my friends, is kohlrabi. A vegetable that before this summer I had never tasted. I wouldn’t have even known how to prepare it. But I now enjoy this and many other veggies, freshly picked from the ground. Did I plant a garden, you ask? No, I joined a Community Support Agriculture (CSA) program. It’s part of my master plan to become a “locavore.” (FYI, Oxford American Dictionary’s 2007 Word of the Year.)

If you’ve read The Omnivor’s Dilemma or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, then you know the importance of shortening the food chain and buying locally grown food. (If you haven’t read either book, do so now — they are both enlightening and entertaining.) Instead of buying my produce at the grocery store, where the tomatoes taste like cardboard because they’ve been genetically engineered to withstand the 1,300-mile, oil-guzzling transport, I’ve been getting my produce through Harvest Valley Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture program. With a CSA, members pay a fee for a growing season’s worth of produce, which is distributed to them weekly from May through November.

Whether or not you want to commit to a CSA, please do buy your produce from a local farm or farmers’ market. Here are my top 5 reasons I love being a “locavore:”

1. TASTE! Beyond being fresher, these fruit and veggies actually have taste. The Luscious Berries (strawberries) were heavenly — as sweet and juicy as my childhood memories. It takes a toll on a berry to be stored and transported across the county. And flavor and nutrition take a back seat to durability on agribusiness’s list of priorities when developing new varieties. It may look lovely, but when is the last time a store-bought peach tasted like you hoped it would? Locally grown is a blessing for my taste buds. (Right now the sweet corn has just come in — incredible.)

2. VARIETY. I’m trying new things. When I vowed to only eat produce from my CSA, I thought I’d be sacrificing. Instead I’m enjoying wonderful new tastes. Kathy at Harvest Valley Farm is so patient with my questions: “What is this? Do I peel it? Do I cook it? How?” Between her instruction and the wonderful cookbook and website, Simply in Season, I’ve discovered I like many vegetables other than salad.

3. CELEBRATING EACH SEASON. Did you know spinach’s natural season in PA is Spring? And watermelon and tomatoes are August? We’re so used to getting anything we want, anytime we want it — but we sacrifice taste, as well as the environment. I am practicing patience, celebrating each season when it comes, in full-flavor, and when it’s gone something else will be here to enjoy. I was sad to see the last of the spinach — but now it’s zucchini time.

4. HELPING THE PLANET. Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes about 87 calories worth of fuel. If every citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally raised food, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels every week.

5. SUPPORTING MY COMMUNITY. In addition to produce, I’m buying local eggs, cheese and meats. More of my grocery money stays in my area, and local farmers get to keep more of the dollars I’m spending because we’ve cut out distribution middlemen. They can keep farming, and I can keeping enjoying their green space.

Last night’s locavore dinner: Whole wheat pasta tossed with sauteed fava beans, onions and patty pan.

I learned from The Today Show this morning that I am happier than you. That is, if you have kids. Because I don’t.

This Newsweek article says the same thing. Recent studies show that people who don’t have kids are 7% happier than people who do. I must admit I was happy to read this. So now I may be, like, 8% happier than you (if you have kids).

I wasn’t trying to be happier than you. It certainly wasn’t my goal in choosing not to have children — I just never felt that motherly yearning for a baby. I bet you didn’t even know I was happier than you (if you have kids). You may have thought, quite understandably, that I couldn’t be completely happy until I had a child. I myself have wondered this very thing from time to time.

But, as it turns out, even though I may not be completely happy, I am happier than you (if you have kids). Sorry about that.

If it’s any consolation, according to the studies you do (if you have kids) feel a greater sense of purpose in life than I (who does not). I’ll give you that. I struggle to ascertain just what my life’s purpose is and how I can make a difference. I want to do something. To be something. Other than be happy, of course, because, you know, I’ve got that covered.

Lately I’ve had reason to ponder what it means to be a friend. Specifically, whether it’s ever appropriate to share something that might cause a friend to feel you are not being supportive. What if the unsupportive thing might ultimately help the friend, even if it hurts your status as a friend? Like the U2 song lyric, if “you’re stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it,” should your friend to try to shake you loose or simply stand by your side and keep you company? Can a person hear what they’re not ready to hear? Should a friend not bother trying? Does true friendship mean a willingness to risk the friendship to save the friend?

A much lighter quandary: If ice cream wreaks havoc on my sinuses, why do I insisted on eating every night?

The other day I once again found myself at the grocery store without my reusable cloth bags. Since my original post I’ve managed to forget them about 50% of the time. Today I get an email from my friend Carol sharing this fact from the EPA:

Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed each year.

I think Carol is tailing me.

Just when you thought it was safe, comes a harrowing sequel to my post about birds…

Last night I was preparing dinner when I heard a thunk against the window on our side porch. Another bird flying into his reflection. Thankfully, the bird didn’t persist in the endeavor and so I didn’t give it much thought. A few minutes later I went out to light the grill. The dogs were underfoot, as usual, hoping I’d drop a burger. Then they took interest in something on the deck, to the right of where I stood.

It was the bird, sitting there dazed and confused from its collision with the window. It blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs from its little bird brain. Before I could stop him, Wilson nudged it with his nose. Then Lucy, unwilling to let Wilson have anything in her kingdom, rushed in and took the bird in her mouth. “No!” I shouted. The bird was trying to fly away but its wings were pinned in the bulldog’s jaws. I grabbed Lucy by the collar to stop her from running off with it. I kept screaming “No! No! No!” — a bloodcurdling scream to rival any by Tippi Hedren — but there was no way Lucy was dropping that bird for Wilson to nab.  And there was no way I was touching that bird to wrench it out of her mouth. So I picked up Lucy, held her over the railing and shook her, shrieking “Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!” I kept hoping someone would come to my rescue; Brian wasn’t home yet, but surely my neighbors could hear my screams echoing off the hillside. But no one came, so I just kept screaming.

Eventually, Lucy released her jaws of death and I watched the bird fall to the ground beneath the bushes. It landed face up, its belly torn open, eyes open and still. I set Lucy down. Feathers poked out from her snout in all directions. A lone drop of blood stood out from the white coat on her leg. She looked at me with sad eyes, knowing she’d displeased me but unable to understand why. Or maybe she was just sad that she didn’t get to eat the bird.

I went inside, called Brian’s cousin Jimmy who lives next door, and promptly burst into tears. Jimmy came and disposed of the bird while I cleaned up Lucy (gag, and now gagging again just remembering). Afterward, still shaking and completely grossed out, I turned off the grill and shoved the burgers back in the freezer.

It’s 9 a.m. Saturday. Brian and I were supposed to be on a 7 a.m. flight to Phoenix today, a combo business conference-reward trip sponsored by one of the insurance carriers he represents. But Brian woke yesterday morning with the flu. Vomiting, 100.2 fever and a full-body ache that has him shuffling like a little old man — that is, on the rare occasion he actually wakes up and rises. I hate seeing him like this. (And I pray I’m not next.)

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Dear Bocephus (may I call you by your nickname?),

This past weekend some friends invited my husband and I to your concert. Actually, they invited us to the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. But when we learned you were the opening act we were excited in a remember-how-much-we-listened-to-Hank-in-high-school kind of way. We’d drive around in Brian’s old truck, a Ford F150, singing along to 8-track and cassette tapes of “A Country Boy Can Survive,” “Family Tradition,” and “Whiskey Bent & Hell Bound.”

As happy as I was to learn you were still touring, I was a little nervous for you, too. I tend to worry on behalf of performers who are a bit, er, past their prime (no disrespect intended). I don’t want them to face any sort of embarrassment. Like when Sinatra, his teleprompter lyrics legible from our nosebleed seats, repeated the same between-song conversational banter and the audience booed him. Or when James Taylor was sharing too many behind-the-music stories and someone shouted “just sing the song!”

So yes, heading into the concert I was nervous on your behalf. But once your show started, I was no longer nervous. I was irritated.

I’d forgotten, Hank, how you like to change the lyrics to your songs when you perform live. I’m sure you get tired of singing the same old words, especially after a couple of decades. You want to mix it up a bit, I get that. I even enjoy a Pittsburgh/Steelers ad lib here and there. But when you change entire lines without so much as a rhyme, or insert half a dozen words in the space of a single beat, that’s no longer clever. Or fun for your fans (though you seemed to be having a ball). We want to sing along — we paid good money to sing along — but we no longer can. If I wrote a song that sold millions, and people still enjoyed hearing it after 20 years, I like to think I’d heed the old adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I understand “all your rowdy friends have settled down” (and several have gone to that great Grand Ole Opry in the sky), so your outlets for outlaw behavior may be slim and few. You informed us more than once during your concert that you sing what you want, where you want, when you want. I’m cool with all that. It’s the how you want I’ve got a problem with. But you keep selling tickets, so maybe I’m the only one who minds. The next time you tour, I think I’ll just stay home and listen to you on our old cassettes. If I can find a tape player, that is.

In my previous post , I was in a quandary about how to spend my completely free weekend. It ended up being the perfect mix of productivity and fun: By day I cleaned out my closet; by night I drank margaritas with friends. This photo shows the finished product (sorry, I can’t get the photo to rotate — so tilt your head as if you’ve had a few margaritas).

I got rid of six kitchen garbage bags of clothes and shoes. I was ruthless with myself. If I hadn’t worn it in the last two years — no matter how much money I paid for it or how cute it was — out it went for someone else to enjoy.

And I’ve made a pact that what’s left I will wear, even for everyday running around. No more “saving” things for going somewhere “nice.” I did the math: I don’t go to that many nice places, so if I only dress nice when I go someplace nice, then 90% of the time I’m dressing pretty crappy. The world deserves a better view of me, and frankly so do I.

I can’t tell you how much more enjoyable deciding what to wear has become. Not only because of my new Don’t Save It rule, but because the clothes are no longer jammed in an indecipherable clump. I can actually see everything I own. And everything I don’t…

Yes, the first thing I did after getting rid of the clothes I never wear was to start buying new clothes I would. At least that’s how I’m rationalizing it. Certainly I found I needed to round out my wardrobe with a few items (white pants & tees that are actually still white, for example). But there is something more to it, I know. My closet went from being a glass full of nothing I wanted to partake of, to being a glass half-full of something I enjoy. My closet is now a margarita. Sure, I’ll have another.

I find myself at a rather odd space-time continuum: a weekend with absolutely nothing on the agenda. Next weekend will be filled to the gills again, just as past ones have been. But this weekend? This weekend is an oasis of nothingness. I keep checking my calendar, sure I’m forgetting a wedding or something. But no. I have nothing and no one to factor in. Even Brian is out of town. I have 48 hours completely and utterly free.

Thus the quandary.

I can’t decide if I feel like wallowing in my solitude, maybe starting a craft or household project, or planning something social. I could go the spontaneity route, just doing whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it (wow, is that allowed?). But what if after eight hours of, say, cleaning out our closets (hey, it could happen), I feel the need for some human contact? The odds that anyone will be available without prior booking are not good. On the other hand, making plans somehow defeats the point of a free weekend.

And so it is that I find myself waffling between laying low and ensuring I’m not lonely. And wondering if free time has become such a luxury that I no longer know what to do with it when I get it.