Ordinary Canary

I ordinarily hate this season, but for some reason, I have really been enjoying fall this year. New York has a marked change of the seasons, which D.C. doesn’t really. Weather in D.C. is either hot or cold - in New York, there’s a distinct period of several weeks where you get to wear light sweaters. It’s a strange concept for me - the light sweater.

The crisper weather has put me in a gigantic knitting mood and I’ve been very productive. I finally finished a sweater I’ve been working on off and on for about two years. I started my first sock. I made a few gifts for friends. I’ve been designing knitting patterns in my head - whether they ever make paper is another question. I bought yarn for my next sweater - Sylvar from Jordana Paige.

It is, among all things, the season for projects. My mind is ramping up with things to do. NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday, which I’m participating in. (I gave up after 25,000 words the only other time I’ve done it, so 30,000 would be a “win”, really.) I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll be writing about and I’m really looking forward to it, although I’m not sure how to balance all my various pursuits at the moment. Still, if that’s the worst thing I have to worry about, then life is pretty darned good.

What a month!

About a month ago, I took my kid brother into my house and set about the business of raising a teenager. Although strange at first, this has gone surprisingly well, and it’s been just delightful having a young mind around the house. I really enjoy his different perspective. Even if the spaghetti I made for dinner sometimes ends up on the carpet. And my socks. And pants. (Really, I thought the spaghetti throwing stage was supposed to be over at a much younger age. Perhaps the aim just improves.)

Two weeks ago, I had news that my maternal grandmother was not doing very well. She seemed to have suffered a stroke and the reports were dire. As such, I caught the next flight to Wisconsin that I possible could and spent the weekend at the retirement home where she was being made comfortable. On Friday, she had stopped breathing for a few minutes - by Sunday she was eating a little and speaking a little. We are all somewhat amazed at the robustness of the human body and - more specifically - of Grandma.

I did leave the kiddo with my lovely boyfriend - and reports are that they got on just fine all weekend and did not miss me one bit. Harrumph.

Sometimes I look at my life a year, even two years ago, and I just can’t reconcile it to where it is today. It seems like ever since I got the call telling me my mom was sick, life has decided to keep throwing things at me that I never imagined for myself. The last two years have been an incredible roller coaster, but the sort that ends at the top of the hill, not the bottom. There have been dips and bumps along the way, but on the whole, it’s looking up.

Coming home each night to family is very, very nice.

Here in NYC, it has become impossible to deny the fact that autumn is upon us. The temperatures have dropped significantly and I find myself wearing a sweater to and from work. Not yet a coat, thank goodness. I dread winter like nothing else.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my garden. My goals for my garden this year were to raise some food and to get the roses all settled into one corner and producing. It was a miserable year for the roses in terms of flower production, but they did have a lot of stem growth. And blight, unfortunately. Food-wise, I managed to grow a lot of tomatoes and chili peppers, a few cucumbers, a handful of strawberries and keep a persistent herb garden (mint, basil, rosemary, oregano, chives). My green pepper plant was stolen by the local squirrel mafia.

I inherited a number of flowering bushes that all flower for about a week in the springtime. My yard turns pink. They don’t do much for the rest of the year and are not what I would have planted. Still, I have some reluctance to kill a living thing just because it’s taking up valuable land. But I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’m ready to maybe try to move them into large planters so that I can have the valuable garden space for growing food. Or kill them. What happens in the garden stays in the garden.

I have a very small amount of space and it’s in the front of the house, in a neighborhood where no one except me seems to devote land to food at all. I am sensitive to the needs of my neighbors, but I do think that I’m going to tear out the decoration and really plant food next year.

I have a whole winter to plan - but would any experienced gardeners want to opine on what I should be doing now to make the soil as fertile as possible for next year? Would chopping up my bushes now and burying the body, as it were, be of benefit? Would the decomposition help with the soil? I could probably get down with plant murder if it would help feed me better next year.

At the moment, it is clear that the big U.S.ian political issue is health care. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about it - and one of the most bizarre arguments that I’ve heard in a long time is the idea that human beings have to earn their right to go to a doctor when they’re sick.

We have a weird system, in which we expect a person to have a job - or at least be dependent on a person with a job - in order to go to a doctor. As a result, we have this completely bizarre idea that one “earns” health care - as though this is somehow a measure of a person’s worth or status. As a reward for being gainfully employed (or the dependent of someone gainfully employed), you get to go to a doctor. Perhaps you’ll even get to go to a good doctor with excellent facilities if you work for a big enough company to have good benefits. If you’re very, very lucky, perhaps you’ll even be able to go to a dentist or an optician.

Of course, this idea conveniently looks past all the people that work in low paid, thankless and important jobs with no benefits, who are often working much harder and for less money than us office monkeys, who are busy “earning” our health care. It looks past small business owners and people who work for companies with under 500 employees, who frequently can’t afford to have decent health care plans. It looks past people who are too sick to work that have slipped through the cracks of our systems - well, they haven’t “earned” their health care. Clearly they don’t deserve medical attention.

People, we have gone seriously, seriously wrong when money is more important than helping a human being — any human being — get adequate medical care. Not being affiliated with a religious group, my morals are of course incredibly suspect by the majority of the population (goodness knows I could never be President), but even I can tell you that this is fundamentally wrong. I am quite frankly amazed that this concept is even up for discussion. I admit to being particularly appalled in listening to religious conservatives talk about the value of a human life in terms of money because this seems so contrary to what I would think their values should be. What happened to community and compassion? What *would* Jesus do? Would he say, “Oh, sorry, you don’t have insurance, so I can’t help you”?

Personally, I would much prefer that my tax money go to helping people (”illegal” and legal) go to the doctor on my dime than have one more penny go towards building more bombs and weapons, invading more countries and killing more civilians. Ethically and morally, this is a simple decision for me - killing people is bad and saving lives is good. Our military budget is exponentially larger than any other country’s — how much more fruitfully could we reallocate this money? Why aren’t the people protesting our tax money going towards weapons of war? Why does giving it to financial institutions get people in the streets, but not the continued and growing military budget?

How on earth did we come to let money dictate our morality?

Stand up people. Dream with me.

I’m not much of a clothes shopper, which is evidenced by the fact that my wardrobe has gotten into a pretty sad state. I’ve been slowly trying to remedy this, which is hard to do when you hate shopping as much as I do.

Also, in this go around of trying to replenish my wardrobe, I find that I’m having a hard time developing an appetite to buy from most of the stores around me, because I’ve been thinking a lot about what goes on behind the scenes to make the clothes. The fashion industry has not made the world a better place.

I would like to start purchasing my clothes from companies that pay fair wages and has decent labor practices. Ideally, the clothes and materials should be made from replenishable materials that have a minimum of environmental impact and aren’t shipped all over the world. I want clothes with a conscience, but I’m having a difficult time finding much information about where to shop.

In the past, I’ve shopped some from thrift stores, but this usually doesn’t work out for me, since I like my clothes to have a good fit, which is tough enough when there’s a range of sizes for a particular item. Once items are unique, finding clothes that fit well becomes an exercise in frustration. Most of the things I’ve purchased in thrift shops get donated again pretty quickly due to a poor fit.

Anyone have any advice? I’m all ears.

I joined a CSA this year, which has been an exciting adventure into vegetables that have never before graced my kitchen.

So far, I have discovered turnips, kolrabi, bok choi, Swiss chard, kale, garlic scapes and rhubarb. We have managed to eat most of it, although the quality of our recipes are improving with time.

I think our favorite so far has been a snap peas recipe. You take fresh snap peas, boil them until they’re bright green, than blanche in cold water. Heat up oil in a stir fry pan, then add snap peas, chopped scallions, soy sauce and some sesame sauce.

Nearly instant yum.

My CSA has excellent recipe resources for vegetables that are perhaps new to you too. I thought I ought to share the link. It’s an adventure in food that we’re really enjoying a lot.

If only for the fresh strawberries. So, so, unbelievably fresh and yum. I feel like I never knew what food tasted like before.

Dear Squirrel Who Keeps Eating My Home-grown Strawberries,

On the day of the Reckoning, you’re going to be first in line.

The store is down the street. Get your own.

Love,
Me

New York has something called The Season, which I’d never experienced before moving here. It starts on Memorial Day, lasts until Labor Day, and means that you go to the beach as much as possible. You sip teas and take things slower. You go to your timeshare on Fire Island or in the Hamptons or Montauk. You wear white and walk the streets of Manhattan slowly, languorously, browsing sales and famers’ markets.

You smile a lot more.

But still, I think the thing I love best about The Season in the town where I live are little things like going out to fancy restaurants and finding that everyone is still in sandals and flip flops, because you just can’t bother to put on socks for any occasion.

I just adore this time of year.

It has been a very busy month. I just came back from a visit to Wisconsin, where I saw quite a large percentage of my mom’s side of the family. It was the first time I’ve been there without her, so it was a little sad from that perspective, but it was nice to be around people who remember her. People who knew her can laugh with me over all the crazy things she would do. It’s nice.

Family visits are always a little odd to me because I was raised geographically distant from both sides of my family. I have cousins, but we didn’t grow up together, which has always made me kind of sad. I have a brother, but he wasn’t born until I was fourteen and we’ve never lived in the same country. My aunts and uncles and grandparents all live in other states. I don’t even recognize most of my extended relations without someone whispering “great-grandfather” or “cousin” or “your father’s cousin”. For most of my daily life, family consisted almost entirely of my mother.

I think this is why I like visiting family so much - I do always wonder what it would be like to grow up with more regular interaction, but it’s really nice to be creating memories. And perhaps the wildest part for me is discovering all the things I have in common with people that I’ve had pretty limited exposure to. I’m pretty out there - and comfortable in my strangeness - so finding people that I share a lot of things in common with is rare. To find such a large group of people who think like I do, act like I do, look like I do and laugh like I do is really empowering. Some things must just be in the genes - which I find really comforting.

The most amazing thing I saw all weekend.

Yes, we went in person. And yes, I desperately need to go to the gym now.

Such grace!