Behind. . .and the Procession

There are little things and big that make me know I live in the right town for me.  I've lived other places; and thought about living other places again.  But, when I reflect, I know that this crazy little place, near the sea, in sight of the mountains, small enough to walk around, this is my place.

The Procession is one of those reinforcing things.  Here's basically how it works: it's a parade, it happens around Earth Day each year, nothing motorized is allowed, it's human powered in all ways, there is a community art studio leading up to it and people make these costumes, the bands are all rag tag, anyone can march, and at the end, everyone who hasn't marched so far falls in after the last band and walks the rest of the way to the end where there is a big party.  That's it.  Actually, the Procession always makes me cry because it is sweetness and community in the way that just breaks your heart it is so perfectly, genuinely human.  You could have one in your town too. . .and I hope that you do, really, it is a treasure.

We start with the city closing off the streets and passing out sidewalk chalk so all the streets are decorated.

 

Then the parade starts.  This year featured lots of little kids (as usual), bats and a bat cave, a really bid spider, birds, a razor clam dig, and whales, jellyfish, zebras, lemurs and others (not pictured).  Priceless.

 

 

 

 

Mommy and Liam watched the whole thing:

Artist, Artist, M'Bay Bay Artist

Liam has been looking at the atlas lately (after seeing a  Wonder Pets episode about Tibet) and is influenced by both the ideas and the visuals.  He explained to me that all these colors were places and what the places were called as he painted them, and I wrote a few down in order of appearance.

1.  Yellow = Olympia (home)
2.  Purple = Artist M'Bay (I have no idea)
3.  Blue = Artist, Artist M'Bay, Bay Artist
4.  Red = Olympia, Olympia, Wash, Wash, State
5.  Brown = Artist, Artist M'Bay, Bay Artist Washington DC, Wash
6.  White = Wash, Wash, Flower, State, State, Flower
7.  Orange = California
8.  Light blue = Artist, Artist M'Bay, Bay, Flower, Rain

I didn't write down the green or the pink.  He covers the entire paper.  He carefully puts each color down all by itself one at a time and he doesn't confuse the names.

A hard night tonight.  Liam is not good at falling to sleep, especially if he's had a nap.  He started a third day at school (daycare) this week, for a lot of reasons, and I know it will be good; but, at school he naps.  He won't nap for love or money at home, but at school, if I don't beg and beg and remind them every morning they will let him sleep for two hours.  And then he lies in bed and wiggles and squirms and complains and whines about not wanting to go to sleep for at least 90 minutes while I lie their and try to think peaceful thoughts and not about all the things I still have to do downstairs before I can go to sleep. 

So, now it's 10:02, I've been downstairs from epic bedtime for about 15 minutes, and it turns out these are going to be the only 15-30 minutes I get to myself today, because I had a long day at work and a long stressful drive home in hail and rain, and I can't stay awake myself much longer.  Another long day looms tomorrow, complete with another nap-induced bad bedtime to cap it off.  I know I have to come up with a better way, but so far, nothing I've tried has worked and I'm out of ideas for now.

Liam has been in mood to ask me lots of questions about Will's death again lately.  This is good, we were worried he wasn't talking about it; wouldn't talk about it.  Still, 9:15 at night mid-way through Long Bedtime is not when I want to field questions like "But, Mommy -- did the doctors hurt Daddy?" and "But, why, why, why did Daddy have the big sickness."  I would rather be on vacation in Artist, Artist M'Bay Bay Artist, wherever the hell that is.  I hope it's near the ocean.

Tiny sliver of a moon tonight when I let the dog out for the last time.  Tiny, far, bright, bright moon and breath that steamed the air.  I thought those days were done for the year -- but tonight, cold, cold again and almost clear.  Thinking warm thought about the fava beans, just four leaves each.  Stay with us small plants.

Dandilions

A day of almost no rain today.  Astounding.  We've been breaking all records for cold and rain.  It has been rain, rain, rain, rain.  Serious rain, the kind that falls as snow in the mountains one moment, and on snow in the mountains the next; and causes lowland flooding.  

Despite this, we have peas, kale, fava beans, shallots, romaine lettuce, and carrots up in the garden.  Strawberries putting on the green.  Rhubarb looking huge and bright and prehistoric.  The season changes despite itself.

And today clouds but no real rain until now, and a very slow walk to the park, filled with dandelion after dandelion until my pockets were stuffed.  And Liam said "Mommy!  Where did all these pretty flowers come from?  Where?"  And I said they came for the spring sweet boy, they mean it's finally coming on to be spring.

The zoo. . .

Liam went through a zoo-making phase this weekend.  He also was delighted, delighted to be addressed as "zookeeper" and to tell me all about the animals. 

"Well, this Lion. . .this Lion, see, he has a big mane, that's his hair; and he has a long tail with this black puff at the end, and his toes are black too and his tummy is very round. . .it's very round see, because he has been eating hay."

Note that when you are the zoo keeper it is important to use your binoculars (backwards) to get a good look at all the animals.  My job was to help make the animal houses and to occasionally intervene when the real animals tried to play.  "Mommy!  AGGGGGGAHHHHH!  Mommy!  Pixie no, NO, NOOOOOO.  Mommy. . .HELP!"  (Pixie is the cat; she is too big for lion houses made from blocks and a hazard to the lion fence too.)  My job also was to pretend to sleep and then wake up and sing the zoo song (you know the one)* and then go to the zoo to be given a(nother) tour by the zoo keeper.

Also this weekend: we successfully walked the dog with no yelling and no crying, which is a very big success.  Did lots of swinging on the swing even though it rained most of both days.  Filled in the Very Big Hole dug by the dog and continued with the gravel-moving-bootcamp workout.  Made carrot raisin cookies, so good.  And took a trip to urgent care because Liam "bonked" his eye on a cardboard box and (as it turns out) scratched his cornea slightly.  (He is fine; will be fine.  Mommy almost had to start drinking after having to help strap her screaming baby into the papoose so his eye could be examined.) 

Here's how Liam explained what happened to the doctor: "Well, Mommy was brushing her teeth and I was on my Auntie Chris' couch, I mean her beddie, and I wasn't looking where I was going and I bonked my eye on a box." 

"Wasn't looking where I was going" is all his own explanation;  my word was accident, as in "You accidentally bonked your eye and it hurts."  He was so brave about the whole thing.  Afterward he said to me: 
"Mommy, I really didn't like that special beddie to help me hold still."   "No, you didn't like it; I didn't like it either, but we had to help you hold still so Dr. Karl could get a good look at your eye." "Yes, we had to do it."  (My description of the papoose; special beddie that helps you hold still, which I thought was pretty good considering I had all of 45 seconds to come up with some way to explain what was about to happen.)

Love and light to my old friend Fred tonight who is (I hope) getting ready to be awakened from his second heart transplant.  What else to say about that.  Go Fred, I wish you many, many more happy years and blessings, peace and comfort to the donor family. 

*This was the best? only link I could fine on YouTube, and it's a cool live recording but not as nice an arrangement for singing as the zoo song we grew up with.

The garden is up; the fence is down

Peas planted three weeks ago at least, before the snow and then the flood and then the weeks of rain, sleet and hail, those peas are sprouted.  And the kale too.  Still no sign of the shallots or fava beans, but I'm hopeful.  Optimism and willingness to work in the rain are the two most important qualities for successful gardening in the maritime NW as far as I can tell.

The second lift of peas went in this weekend.  (Sounds so huge, it is only really two more short rows, about four feet each, the width of the raised beds.)  Carrots went in too.  Romaine.  More kale.  Planted by Liam and me on the first sunny day in ages, and slept their first sleep under the biggest full moon one could wish for.  Beets and other lettuces will follow soon.  Summer broccoli.  And we'll go on that way for a while until June when maybe it will be warm enough for the pole beans to go in and the basil.  In July I'll get tomato transplants from the Farmer's Market, and maybe a hot pepper or two.

Liam found some side-shoots from the overwintered purple-sprouting broccoli when he was helping me plant.  He was so excited to eat it raw from the garden; purple broccoli was a revelation.  It was a beautiful purple, but none of the pictures came out.

Just before the great snow, yes, before, I started a somewhat misguided front-garden-wall-replacement-project.  The fence did not survive the great melt/flood/deluge and collapsed into the back excavation for the new wall, so now it has become a wall and fence replacement project.  I got into this sideways when the north side neighbor mentioned that the fence line zigged when it ought to be straight and it should be fixed in a way that would give me four more feet of sun.  Four feet of sunny front yard perfect for blueberries?  Okay, I can get comfortable with that.  Except the elevation difference between my place and her's is about three feet in the front.  So, the side wall needed to be moved.  And it is, of course, attached to the front wall.  So I think, if we're going to get into this we should do it right and just replace the whole crooked, cinder-block wall mess with something that will look decent.  Thus began the total replacement of the wall; and now the fence too.  Note to self: leave things well enough alone already.

It has been too wet and rainy to get the wall in right for most of the past two weeks, but Friday's half dry day started real progress again and I'm cautiously hopeful that they might wrap it up this week.  Liam is very much enjoying watching all this unfold, from the big truck with detachable forklift that delivered the blocks, to the wall digging and progress, to, especially, the mud pit that used to be our parking strip. 

Happy first day of spring; we are ready for it around here, that's for sure.

Buckwheat noodles and broccoli

It's shaping up to be a real and truly animal-free food weekend.  Friday night I made red lentil dal and brown rice (from here, a lovely place) which I served with broccoli and some more orange squash.  Saturday dinner was buckwheat noodles with broccoli from Bittman, Food Matters.  These noodles were so, so easy and so good, and were just inhaled by the small one.  (They are teriyaki noodles and asparagus in the cook book.)  I adapted the recipe a little, which is to say, I left out the ingredients I didn't have around.

8-10 ounces buckwheat soba noodles
4 cups cut up broccoli
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon each garlic and ginger, minced
2 tablespoons or less oil (I used canola, I think)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey mixed with 2 tablespoons water (this is a mirin substitute)

1. Mix the soy sauce and honey/water 
2. Bring some water to boil for the noodles.
3.  In a large pan suitable for stir-frying cook the broccoli with the oil, ginger, garlic and green onions.  I added the oil and when it was hot added the broccoli and green onions, cooked until it was starting to turn bright, then added the ginger and garlic, cooked a minute or so more, then added some water and covered to steam until the broccoli was all bright green but still crunchy.  Take off the cover, turn off the heat.
4.  Cook the noodles; mine took 3 minutes after the water returned to a boil.  Don't overcook them.
5.  Turn the heat to medium-ish under the broccoli.  Add the cooked noodles, about 1/2 cup of cooking water, and the soy sauce mixture.  Stir around and cook until everything is mixed well and heated through and the sauce has reduced slightly; this worked out to be about another 5-6 minutes.  That's it, you're done.

Next time I would add lots more vegetables, at least red pepper and onion, and maybe carrots too.  Bittman calls for adding some shelled edamame at the end with the noodles and I'm sure that would be good.  I didn't have any edamame in the freezer this week for some reason. 

Liam ate salmon and veg. last night (he's not a big lentil fan) and a little more salmon with his broccoli and noodles tonight.  Loved it all, especially the noodles.

It's raining, raining, raining this weekend and predicted to continue. The front fence collapsed because the new retaining wall in the front has been so delayed by weather.  So, now I guess we'll be getting a new fence too.  Great.

Happy Birthday to Auntie Chris today.  What is to say about Auntie Chris? She is simply the best sister, auntie, naval officer, a person could ever encounter.  We are so blessed and lucky to have her in our lives. 

My first week as a vegan

In my grocery store, the organic spinach apparently comes with lady bugs included.

On Monday I started a 30-day vegan "cleansing" project.  This basically involves not eating animal foods (meat, fish, eggs, dairy) and eating whole plant-based foods instead, as much as possible.  For me, these structured events are a good way to re-baseline my food habits and cravings.  I've done them before, but this year's guided on-line version organized by this person here, is truly compassionate and impressive and I'm really enjoying the materials and community.  It makes me more conscious of my commitments to myself.

At the same time, I'm pretty casual about it.  In my first week "animal free," I've eaten 2 small pieces of chicken (while traveling for work and eating late in a hotel), 2 eggs, some small chocolates that I get in the grocery store checkout line and just don't feel the need to give up, and a little bit of chicken pot pie when GoGo and GG invited us to stay for dinner and that was what was on the table.  Oh, and 2 small buckwheat pancakes when GoGo and GG invited us to the Fat Tuesday pancake supper at their church.  (Buckwheat pancakes w/out butter are not as good as buckwheat pancakes with butter, I'll tell you that.)  Also, I'm still working the loaf sprouted wheat bread that was in the kitchen when this started for my morning peanut butter toast, and while I haven't looked it doubtless has some small amount of dairy in it.

On the other hand, I've eaten: massive amounts of broccoli, a butternut squash, cooked white beans with garlic, brown rice, an apple and/or a banana every day, tofu and vegetables from the veg lunch spot, an entire huge container of raw spinach, lentils, almonds, popcorn (with soy sauce, my favorite), and at least 300 ounces of water.  And I haven't eaten any: cookies, lattes, cheese, croissants (we have the best french bakery here, really you should visit), pasta, chocolate (other than those grocery store checkout line candies), or alcohol, I've cut coffee by more than half, to only one cup a day, and upped the water intake.  And I feel lots better.  And my skin is clear, and I wake up with more energy.  And I've lost a pound or two (probably not for reals, but at least on the scale).  So, I'll stick with it for another 3 weeks and at the end, I'll work eggs and fish and meat back in as I come across them.  I don't feel any particular urge to be a vegan full time, but these little vacations from animal foods are really illustrative and helpful, at least for me.  Try it for a day.  Or maybe just a few meals a week.

Another illustration: Liam asked me the other day, "well, how do they get the hamburger from the cows."  In a total and complete cop out I said, "we'll talk about that some other time."  And, because it was late and he was tired, and there was cold milk, fig newton, and story time in the offing, he---for once---let it go and hasn't brought it up again.  One more reason to eat quinoea and kale.