Wahhh ha ha

I spent much of yesterday crying. Part of the crying was crying about how much I was crying.
   I said (for some broad, blubbery definition of said) "I'm just cr-cr-cr-cr-cry-hing all d-d-aaaay todaaay!"
   Bjorn said "It's a day for crying. It's Saturday. 'Saturday' means 'crying day'. It's from middle Swedish. Sat-around-and-cried–day got shortened to Saturday."

I laughed. For some blubbery definition of laughed.

Nayb

When we were filling out our adoption application for a dog, one question was how busy our house is, with choices from "like Grand Central Station" to "like a graveyard".
   We have a dozen children and several adults in and out of the house throughout the week, and we have dinner guests weekly. We also (until the parvovirus) hosted twice monthly a small-group–ministry gathering. I picked the option just one less busy than "Grand Central Station".

When our group meets, there are 10 people driving 10 cars to our house (exurban America!), and there are only so many places to park them. One convenient place, kitty corner from us, so across the street from our next-door neighbor, looks like a parking strip and often gets cars parked on it.
   We learned that our neighbor Gauche does not like this: She told us 'tell your guests NOT to park there.' It's not her property, but in wet weather the cars leave tracks in the dirt and she finds it unsightly. We made this request of our guests, some of whom have sometimes forgotten. Not all of the parkers are our guests, but neighbor G has come to assume that they are.
   Around this same time another neighbor, Droit, came into a ton of wood chips and of her own accord put wood chips on the parking strip, and I thought it improved the looks, and covered the mud, thus ameliorating the tire-track problem. (As far as I know neighbor D was unaware of any discussions between us and G.) But that too made neighbor G mad.

When we first met her she was very welcoming and friendly, but sometime in between our first meeting and now she has become unfriendly. A couple of weeks ago Bjorn said that when he was walking by and greeted her she gave him the evil eye and wouldn't speak to him.
   A bad day? Sourness over the [no] parking area?

Today, a few noisy and rude-sounding surveyors parked in G's driveway and were skirting around our property. Bjorn went out to talk to them, and neighbor G called. the. police.
   She said, "I'm going to call the police." Bjorn said, "please do; may I listen in on the call?" The police arrived swiftly. Neighbor G told the policeman to tell Bjorn to stop talking to the surveyors and go back into the house. The policeman said he couldn't do that.

I was on the phone with my sister, which is just as well, because I would have FREAKED OUT.

I do not trust the police, and now I do not trust this neighbor. If she had called the police on me I would have seen it as an extreme attack. As it is, I feel vicariously attacked. The fact that we did nothing wrong is no consolation to me; I have no faith that the police care about the legality of our actions.
   Bjorn pointed out that calling the police is something one does when one feels threatened, but I was not into perspective taking and [neighborly] compassion. I felt fearful. We have an irrationally angry neighbor, who is taking horrible (to me), aggressive action.
   What. on. Earth.

It turns out that neighbor G wants to build a new fence between our house and hers. A high, wood fence (as on the other side of her house), to replace the short, chain link fence. This could make me feel better, actually; I don't want to feel threatened in my own yard. Let's just all hope this is a better fence and pray god Frost is right.

___
*edited for clarity, spelling, and because I accidentally a word (or two)

S^itting

So, sitting is really bad for you. Even dedicated exercisers (people who work out an hour a day) aren't better off if they sit the rest of the day. See The First 20 Minutes and The Last Best Cure and ... anywhere, really; I've read this more and so often now that it seems to be becoming common knowledge not in need of a citation.
   In April I tracked a week of sitting. Any time I sat down I started a timer. My day of least sitting was 5 hr 11 min, my day of most was 8 hr 50 min. Hmm.
   At the time, I was feeling pretty great about that. I wanted to do another set round'bouts now, to see how things are now (being sure to include several working days, since I usually sit while I work). But before I got a chance, my foot started KILLING me. I wrote first "But then I injured my foot", only there wasn't an instance of trauma to the foot. It just flared up. The x-ray shows no fracture. For a few days I was a day-time Jennyanydots.
   Now I am back to baby steps. My doctor said no running but walking every day, starting with a short distance and working up. Today I went out for a mile walk.

I wanted my sweet new dog to keep me company while I convalesced. But he's sick now. So I'll just walk, getting stronger so that we can both recover together if he comes home.

Comestible

Sometimes I eat food that I don't make. One example is South River's "Dandelion Leek Miso" made of deep well water, organic soybeans, organic brown rice, sun-dried sea salt, dandelion greens, wild leeks, nettle greens, organic sea vegetables, and koji culture.
   Another example is an artisanal chocolate made of [all organic] stone ground cacao, cacao butter, honey, hemp, and maitake mushroom.

But I'd say 90% of what I eat is food that does not have a label. Maybe I should track that to be sure. Who wants to know what I eat every day? Do I?

Salad

I made up a salad yesterday that I love.
   I used 2 pomegranates, 2 avocados, a bunch of cilantro, and 5 green onions. I dressed it with the juice of 1 lime, olive oil (probably halfish a cup), and Himalayan salt.

Bidness Woes

For my business, I independently contract with a company I'll call LatKes. LatKes recently rolled out a new website. On this new site, more of my stats are available to me.
   Earlier this year I noted a significant and repeating discrepancy between ostensible income (calculated simply by multiplying [number of students] by [number of scheduled lessons] by [price per lesson]) and my real income. I make a lot less than it looks like I will. It didn't take long to figure out why: cancellations.
   I've been, therefore, aware that cancellations are eating up potential earnings (I even took it up directly with one cancel-happy student), but I didn't track them precisely.
   Enter the new LatKes site with the new stats.
   A whopping third of my scheduled lessons for this year were cancelled. That includes any students who stopped taking lessons and cancelled anything remaining, and the lessons I cancelled when my computer died in September. So it reflects more than just current students and includes my own cancellations. Even discounting those things, easily one fifth of my planned lessons fell through!

I want next year to be different. My problem is that 85% of my clients are through LatKes and I can't change my cancellation policy for them. They have the option to cancel up to 24 hours in advance.
   What's an independent contractor to do?!

Things and Stuff

I can have a hard time letting go of tangibles.
   Once upon a time, what I would do with an item that I struggled with discarding was (1) take a picture of it and (2) tell Roscivs a story about it (3) discard it straightway.

The picture was his idea.
   When it came time to process the data card (once it was full) I would keep the picture if I still wanted a picture. This may have happened once or twice, but I can't specifically remember it. Usually by that time I had already let go, realized I was happy without it, and chose to delete the picture.

Now I skip the picture step.

Some things I have held onto until now:
   • 20+ lb. of Japanese language learning papers (many of which don't even have R's handwriting on them ... all of which are materials I can't read)
   • a sea shell that my childhood penpal Ricki painted and sent to me
   • scrapbook papers — e.g., a spate of trite poems that I wrote (by assignment, in response to trite prompts) in 5th grade

What do those things mean to me? I choose to use this blog post, rather than those papers, to commemorate
   • how Roscivs was so unusually devoted to and delighted by learning;
   • how thoughtful a penpal Ricki was (that shell was her postcard to me from a vacation in Mexico);
   • how in 5th grade I was oversaturated with vacuous assignments

I feel better now.

shall i compare thee to a ...

My brother once told me I looked like "The Scream". My first college roommate once told me that my longness reminded her of "something by El Greco", like "Madonna of the Long Neck".
   Yesterday Bjorn told me I look like "that painting", the Botticelli Venus.
   Does this mean I'm aging well? Does it mean I was standing on an improbably large shell? It can't be that my hair is a different color, because it was wrapped up in a yellow towel turban at the time.

carefree

I sold my car! I am car-free!!
   This is the good life. Living without driving!
   I met Bjorn in a parking garage; my vehicle was assigned the space next to his. Now we are a carless family. A good story.

For celebration, I give you "Sampo", the song in the opening credits of Tonari No Totoro.

あるこう あるこう わたしはげんき
あるくの だいすき どんどんいこう

Here's my translation: 'Walk, walk. I am healthy. I love walking! "don-don" goes the sound.'

Let the Thanks Begin

~ Three Thanks ~

I'm grateful for my future-oriented, generous in-laws cutting me a plump check for my Roth IRA. It turns out that they every year fill the retirement funds of their children and their children's spouses. This is "putting your money where your mouth is" if there ever was such a thing.

I am grateful that, through Amazon, I have been connected with someone who wants to own Roscivs' complete set of the Hikaru No Go manga in Japanese. I've felt it was being wasted. I love Hikaru but can't read Japanese. I want it to go to someone who wants it.
   I suppose that this person could be collecting manga to line the floors of cages of sad birds whose wings he's clipped, but I am happy to have this opportunity to tell myself the story that these are going to a home that wants them.

I am grateful for the red blanket on my bed.

One door-bell Ding later

We now have two fire extinguishers with agents that extinguish fires of classes A, B, and C. Honestly I didn't know (three days ago, an hour before finalizing my extinguisher order) that there are different extinguishing agents for different fire classes. I didn't even properly know that there are fire classes. I mean, I knew that there's a sciencey art to fires; I knew there are specialists who determine how arsonists light fires and whatnot. I also knew that one should check one's extinguishers periodically to see if they are still good. What I didn't know was that I could naively have bought a limited-use extinguisher that would put out a fire kindled by a napkin but not put on a fire fed by gas. But don't worry, I didn't buy any such thing. I bought two non-dinky fire extinguishers.
   It seems odd that by law you have to have fire detectors in your house when you sell it, but not fire extinguishers.

New House: Utilities: Garbage

When I called the city to set up our utilities, I selected the smallest available garbage bin (and the largest organic-waste bin). The woman at the city seemed to think that we would be soon asking for a bigger garbage bin.
   We have a 20 gallon garbage bin. Garbage is collected every other week. This means our cap on waste is 5 gallons / person / week.

Bin day is Friday. I love watching the truck pull up to the house, extend the claw-hug to the bin, lift it, and empty the contents. I loved it as a kid too.

Moving is a high-waste activity, and our bin is filling up. Will utili-lady be right? Will we want a bigger bin? I guess: not.
   I intend to monitor how much garbage (i.e., municipal solid waste, MSW, that what goes to landfills) we produce on a regular basis. Can we produce less than 20 gallons a month? Less than 20 pounds? — I'll have to weigh myself with the garbage to know. I looked up how much MSW the average American produces. The measurements I found are of weight, against which bin volume does not provide a meaningful comparison.

Dx Day

Four years ago, a Tuesday, I got home from an early-morning (9am) doctor appointment. It was partly a pre-natal visit. Life was pregnant with possibility.
   After I came home and reported on my visit, Roscivs said I need to go to the doctor, too. He called his doctor. I heard him tell her I've been coughing up blood.

We got nine months of cancer treatment and a death. It looked a lot like this. Our first cancer picture, though, was Roscivs holding a pee-stick pregnancy test positively indicating elevated hCG — only it was his pee, not mine.
   Nine months of that, and no baby for us.

Today is a Sunday. I am excited to clean the two bathrooms in my new home. I am okay. I want to be alive.

merry married

I was going to make a simple wedding post, before the wedding, but during its composition I got sidetracked into a(nother) conversation with Bjorn about vowel merging.
   Bjorn, being of the New states Jersey and York, finds marry, merry, and Mary to have all different internal vowels.

Here is a post now, post wedding. 
   For "something old", I had on my person the handkerchief I inherited from my great-grandma. For "something new", the top I wore (which I had not worn before, and which, against all my plans, was white) which had a neckline that allowed for my borrowed something, a choker sent from Luminous. (It was her grandmother's!) For "something blue" I bore the ring (with sapphires) that was my wedding band from Roscivs.

All four items were "old" (even my "new" which, though new to me, I bought second-hand). This is not unexpected. There is nothing new under the sun.

New Game New Name

Yesterday I participated in an afternoon of world building, story telling, and character gaming.
   I'm not used to the particulars of RPG games, but I have plenty of experience role playing, making believe, and riffing off of others' contributions to the world. 
   I enjoyed myself.

The platform we're using is Fudge. The game manual available in PDF for free from Grey Ghost Press. Fudge, self-descriptively named, is highly customizable. Bjorn, who's the Game Master (GM), is using it for the first time. It lets him play up the parts he likes and avoid the fiddly bits of D&D that he doesn't like that have deterred him from being GM (or DM).

We mostly expressed preferences and formed world. We meet again in two weeks. Between now and then I shall finish my character sheet. I need to choose a name ...

House Haps

We don't close until mid-October but things are looking great! I thought about blogging more about the house, but then thought, nah, people are going to see it when they're here for the wedding. But not everyone can come to the wedding (like LF, who is due tomorrow with baby FH).
   House-buying seems likely to be momentous to the people doing it and ho-hum to everyone else. So if this bores you, let me know what subject you request, and I will write a post on that!

Here are some details about the house, à la the daisy conceit of I Love It / I Love It Not.

   paint | I do love the paint in the kitchen (red!). I don't love the paint in the second/back bedroom (pink).
   front yard | I love the sour/pie cherry tree. I don't love the lawn.
   master bedroom | I love that it has french doors opening out onto the deck in the back yard. I don't love how big it is (it's big).
   bath | I love the jetted tub underneath the skylight. I don't love the standard, Western toilet.
   kitchen | I love the gourmet Jenn-Air dual fuel range/oven. I don't love the sink situation. Let me explain. The kitchen, like most kitchens, has one sink. That sink is a double sink, one side deep and one side shallow, which is fine. I don't love that it doesn't have two separate sinks. I also don't love that the one sink it has doesn't have a foot pedal.
   water feature | I like the sound of the back yard fountain, and I love that you can hear it from the master bedroom, but to LOOK at it is another story; I'll just say, Bjorn calls it "The Puking Cat".

If you are thinking some of this sounds like "what I don't like about a million dollars is that it's not two million dollars", well, that's about right.

last week's foodlight: mushroom+turnip+pickle dice

I made breakfast of bunashimeji in 3 Gs (ghee, garlic, and ginger) and cut-up salad turnips. I served the still-steaming bunashimeji in a bowl over the crisp turnips.
   Bunashimeji is one of my three favorite kinds of mushrooms. Black Trumpet and Shiitake are the other two.

When I was a kid, sometimes for lunch we were set free to forage or one of my siblings (or I) was in charge of fixin's. Usually sammich fixin's. Sometimes, especially foraging times, we fought over food (especially if there were leftovers of "lipstick and worms", i.e., spaghetti). But sometimes, especially sammich times, we'd pretend we were at a restaurant, and those times were congenial dining times.
   This breakfast was congenial dining too. And it was gourmet and I didn't have to wear pants. It had pickles, too! Cucumber pickles. I forgot that above: chilled lacto-fermented pickle condiment.

house countdown

So, I don't want to be thought of as The Girl Who Cried "HOUSE!", but we put in an offer on a house.
   4 is the number of varietals of espaliered apple trees in the back yard... 3 is the number of bedrooms... 2 is the number of skylights....

CARGH

I just spent a month's worth of teaching income repairing my car. This really rankles. I am committed to getting rid of it. I want to live without a car.
   The only thing I use it for on a weekly basis is grocery shopping. I need to figure out how to do this without a car. My favorite plan for accomplishing this is ... moving.

Tasty Hasty Victuals

Supper was vegan. And not just any vegan. RAW VEGAN.
   This is funny to me.
   Extra virgin olive oil (harvested November 2012) and my homemade lacto-fermented salsa (delicious) on zucchini noodles and avocado.

My salsa is so good, I'm sure people would pay money for it. Also, I didn't use a starter, mwaha, haha, BWHAHAHA! I cut the mustard! I am fermentation goddess!

abundance

Today I did August's finances, and I made my annual Labor-Day-Weekend–Kiva loan. I am grateful to have work, and even more grateful to have support in my life and work.
   I am grateful to Roscivs for having taught me so much about how to deal with money. I am grateful to Peg (my sister) for helping me, after Roscivs died, customize a budget template she gave me, so I could do accounting on software that I can maintain without R. I am lucky.
   Here's to the Kiva borrower growing organic cacao.
   Here's to life.

Bloodwork Soundtrack

Results are in. Glucose (fasting) was 76. Cholestorol was 177. Triglycerides 44. HDL 53. LDL 115. Chol/HDL ratio 3.3. All OK.
   My numbers are good, but my health is better. I'm alive.
   I'm still alive.
   The other day we were listening to "Perfect Space" while we cleaned the kitchen and I said "I hope I'm old before I die", and Bjorn said "I hope that I get old before I die", then stopped and said, "I hope that you get old before I die." It's a love song.

Apocalyptic Food, pt 3 o' 3

Behold the face in front of the well-oiled, so-far cogs of my no-grain food storage!

♣ canned salmon • canned sardines • canned coconut milk • coconut oil • ghee • tallow • seaweed • raisins • animal gelatin • honey

TA-DA!

Almost all of my process, hard work, and rumination is unenumerated; these three parts are bones; not included are soft, connective, fleshy bits.
   I did tons of work to figure out how to have command of a simple process, and this is what I have to show for it, and it's not showy. I feel like this must be what happens to my grandpa. He and my grandma send out a newsletter every month. His part of it usually has such simplified structure that one might think it insulting, yet sometimes (as he states) it took him years to achieve it.
   Well, Grandpa, if this is what happens to you, I feel ya.

So. There's no way that I have three months worth of only these foods. And even if I did, it would be a dreary three months. But I have made a very fine start for myself.

al-Lazeez!

I often make something very yummy and then forget about it (thus not making it again). Well, this one I want to remember, so I am telling you what we had for breakfast today —

   Chili powder and garam masala CARROTS coined and sauteed in ghee, with ginger. Then one egg over easy each.

1 Balanced and Broad, 1 Cute

"Some of My Best Friends are Germs" — Micheal Pollan's essay is the best gut-bug piece yet!
   To accompany it, my favorite from Bird and Moon comics.