Year In Review

Tomorrow is Earth Day and I'm reflecting on our behavior since the last Earth Day. I don't feel like we've done very well this year from an environmental point of view. I mean we still try to buy organic, try to avoid purchasing foods from far away places like New Zealand, never purchase beverages in plastic bottles, use the least possible water in all activities, recycle, use air conditioning and heat as little as possible, buy shade-grown coffee, have switched to energy-saving light bulbs, wash with cold water, eat mostly vegan and certainly vegetarian, and buy as much as we can from the bulk bins to reduce packaging, but we haven't added anything new this year. In fact although we do use canvas bags when we shop at Earth Fare I still need plastic grocery bags for scooping cat litter. And our composter isn't working correctly so we haven't even been doing that. Hopefully this summer Saeed can fix it or buy a new one, but shouldn't we be taking steps to do more?

The obvious answer is "Yes!" I can't ride my bike to work but we can make a garden. Our plan is to find the area in our back yard that gets the most sun for the most hours per day, and grow as much of our own produce as possible. It won't be much (remember, I have a black thumb) but it will be some amount more than we currently produce which is none.

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These aluminum bottles are easy to use instead of plastic. They do get dented but who cares? And since they're not made of plastic I don't worry about them getting warm in the car - no nasty chemicals to leach into my drinking water.

It's true. Not only does my laundry get just as clean as before switching to cold water, but my colors stay brighter. Many of my coworkers still use warm/hot water and their uniforms fade more and sooner than mine do.

Now if only we could get recycling pick-up outside of city limits so we wouldn't have to lug it to the recycling center...

We are fortunate to live in a relatively temperate part of the country. Our heat pump turned on maybe twice this winter. Granted, it was a warm winter and we also use our natural gas logs as heat, but we are willing to keep our system OFF much longer that most people and set our temps much colder in winter and hotter in summer. Plus we have kitties to warm our laps in winter! (really sucks in summer)

Every once in awhile we run out of our favorite organic, shade-grown, fair-trade coffee and have to use what we used to drink. Blukh! Chemical brew not worth drinking. I feel so much happier knowing the land, the animals, and the farmers are not suffering for my caffeine habit.

We buy as much as possible from the bulk bins at Earth Fare. Not only is there less packaging surrounding our food but it's cheaper. No more boxes of oatmeal, cans of nuts, boxes or un-resusable bags of rice and legumes.

We really love soy yogurt. It provides necessary nutrients as well as live bacterial cultures for gut health and does not come from dairy cows. One day we saw that these little containers weren't recyclable. Horrors! We almost decided to stop buying them, then noticed that the containers are made out of plants and can be thrown away. Maybe one day we can make our own and do away with the containers altogether.

We can't be happier about our vegan-ish/vegetarian diet on so many levels. Reduced suffering for animals is primary for me, but to know that the environment is better off is a super bonus. Some articles recently tried to say that organic and vegetarian growing practices were worse for the environment but these have all been discounted.

So that leaves the darn broken composter. I know what the first thing on Saeed's post-retirement to-do list is! I feel sure we'll composting again soon.

As I mentioned above we plan to add a garden to our green-wannabe lifestyle so we can grow some of our own vegetables. This is the site of our future experiment in farming. Right now it's full of periwinkle ground cover but at some point I hope to post pics of a garden in the making.

Right now this is the extent of our vegetable garden. Look how much our tomato plants have grown and look at our new babies...

Do You Trust Your Eyes?

It's a long story and I'll detail it later but we've been working on getting Obi comfortable (and Banu comfortable with him) being on the other side of our dining room doors so that we can eventually let Frosty back out into the bottom part of the house. We're not ready to bring Obi over permanently but it's going pretty well - look:

 !!

Obi's New Favorite Place To Sleep

In a recent post I put a picture of Obi and Tippy napping, with Obi sleeping in the soil of a big plant pot. This preference for sleeping in a pot is new, and he's choosing to sleep there many hours of the day. Perhaps he's trying to reconnect with the earth as so many of us are these days.

It doesn't look very comfortable to me but I'm not a cat.

Finally getting up to stretch and...

... go right back to sleep. He smells so good after he's lain in the soil, like dirt. I know that doesn't sound like it would smell good but for anyone who loves the out of doors, it's a good smell!

Found Pics Of Old Friend Friedl!

I have a cousin in Austria (that I will not name for her privacy) who emailed me to ask if I had any information about an old friend of my mother's from her life before moving to the US. Apparently my cousin met a friend of an old friend of hers who told her that his mother and my mother were girlhood friends who continued to write to each other after my mother left. Unfortunately he sold his parents' house and threw away all the old papers but he remembers very clearly photographs of me and my sister as children. His mother's name was Elfriede Maria Böröz, called Friedl, and my cousin was hoping I had some of the letters she wrote to my mother, or perhaps remembered some stories my mom may have told me of her old friend back in Austria. Unfortunately I don't have any letters of hers but I did find four photographs in my mother's album that named Friedl.

 The page was labeled, "Ein Besuch in Friedl Böröz' Garten September 1941" which translates to "A visit in Friedl Böröz' garden September 1941".

Friedl is on the left, my mother in the middle, and another friend by the name of Reserl is on the right. They are all holding cute bunnies!

I may like this pic the best.

 Look at my mom's cute expression.

Ok, NOW I know where I got my silliness from!

My cousin also wrote, "How small the world is! I think that's such a nice and wonderful story!" I agree.

Swamplandia!

Swa what? Swamplandia! is the name of the book we discussed last night in book club. I'm glad I read it, I learned a few things, and the author wrote beautifully, but I can't say I loved this book. New York Times Book Review listed it on their Ten Best Books of the Year and Emma Donoghue wrote, "The plot of “Swamplandia!” is nothing special — dysfunctional family pull apart, then pull together — but the execution is. This family, wrestling with their desires and demons, will neither succumb nor triumph, but survive in their scarred way, and will lodge in the memories of anyone lucky enough to read “Swamplandia!” If the gothic whimsy of this novel is sometimes too self-conscious, the pleasures it offers are unforced." Really? Then why didn't I like it better? Because even though Russell wrote beautifully the dark story was too creepy and weird.

I learned that there is a genre called Gothic Fiction that includes elements of the supernatural and macabre. Some reviewers characterized this book as Southern Gothic which is a sub-genre of Gothic Fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South.  It uses these tools not just for suspense but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the South. I felt uncomfortable nearly the whole time I was reading this book. The fact that I 'had' to read it for book club and because I really loved the main character, a plucky courageous 13 year girl named Ava, made me keep reading.

Apparently HBO has picked up Swamplandia! so you'll be able to see it for yourself one day. I'm sure Karen Russell is tickled pick about that, but I would like to ask her to use her talents in a different genre of fiction when she writes her next book. Swamplandia! was a hellish journey, but then it was supposed to be.

Nutrition Quiz

I like to take quizzes about nutrition. The subject area interests me and I read a lot about it but I always get at least one question wrong! If you'd like to take it but worry it'll take too long, go for it - it's only 10 quick questions. Good luck!

                  Take Quiz.

Much harder is applying the knowledge and not eating those jelly beans.  :-/

Do You Know Where Your Colon Is?

Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine felt the need to use matter-of-fact language when they made the following billboard because "39 percent of Americans don't know what the colon is." They came up with the number 39 based on a recent adult telephone survey conducted by ORC, but I can vouch for it. Many of our patients don't know basic anatomy and would not know what or where their colon is.

Baseball fans eat more than 22 million hot dogs at ballparks during baseball season. PCRM's put their new billboard outside of Marlins Park in Miami and another one in Chicago to warn opening-day attendees that hot dogs can damage their health. 

“Colon cancer attacks 140,000 Americans every year, killing about 50,000, and processed meats are a clear-cut contributor,” says Susan Levin, M.S., R.D., PCRM nutrition education director. “Many Americans have no idea that eating hot dogs and bacon raises their risk of this deadly disease.” “It is a bit surprising that we have to simplify the message to this extent,” Levin says. “Hopefully the information will get through.”

Let me add that cold cuts (lunch meats) are included on this list. I never have eaten a lot of hot dogs or bacon but I used to eat lunch meat every day. I just hope that not eating these things for 16 years reduces my risk.

The Riverwalk

Late Sunday Saeed and I went to the Riverwalk to take a nice walk on the Carolina Thread Trail, a trail that in our area, runs along the Catawba River. When Martha and Ken were here last April we walked it for the first time, so I had fond memories as we trod along. As we were walking, I began to smell rain, but it didn't start raining till we got back in the car. Perfect timing.

The marker identifying the path as part of the Carolina Thread Trail. The lone walker you see on the path is Saeed. I keep stopping to take pictures and then have to run to catch up.

A typical view from the path.

Kayakers.

The current was pretty swift.

That little island kept calling to me. I have no doubt that if I were 45 years younger, I would have waded out to that little piece of land and pretended to be on an island in the wilderness with no one around for miles.

I did get right down to the river's edge.

Above me sat a walker who was grateful for the bench.

We get our drinking water from the Catawba River.



Beautiful. Saeed's other set of truck keys are at the bottom of this river (right girls?)

As we walked back toward the car I had my nose in the air to smell the rain and I got a whiff of something flowery. I brought my head back down and looked around to see where it was coming from. Aren't they beautiful? Wish you could smell them.

As we drove away, I spotted a rainbow. It eventually developed into a full-blown rainbow with all the expected colors. What a nice end to the weekend.

Anahita's Recent Visit

Anahita flew into Atlanta to spend two days with the Cyrus and Kai before coming here. Her flight got her there late and she got up early the next day so by the time she got to our house she was in much need of some R & R.

Tita finished Hunger Games while here. She left RH with the next two books in the trilogy in her carry-on.

Shirin gets a good morning kiss from Kai.

Awww.

Of course Shirin was tired too and Kai took advantage of his horizontal mother to cop a snuggle. No wonder she's always tired.

Baba is always doling out the raisins, dates, and walnuts. He knows the way to his grandsons' hearts.

Mr. Conehead.

Kai plays well by himself.

Kai completed three puzzles without help before he tried to do this one with the alphabet. Too hard.

Anywhere is a good place to read a book. I'm not sure if my sister remembers but when the girls were little she bought them books in which they were the main character and the locations and friends were local. This book is one of those books. Cyrus loved being read a book about a girl named Shirin who lived in Rock Hill, went to St. Anne's School and had two best friends named  Lisa and Anahita.

Outside for some basketball and...

...walking.

This cooking competition* made me nervous. I've always hated it when the girls had to compete against one another. I happily left the scene and played with the boys upstairs.

Lunch at Cherry Park.

Cyrus couldn't be bothered to eat with all the other boys to play with.

Kai finally lured him to the table.

I'm not sure what that face means, maybe "I'd rather be playing than eating"?

No one can turn down a sub though.

It took Tita a while to feel comfortable with Kai going down the slide by himself. We all worry that he'll kill himself because he's fearless but actually he does very well.

Blue Man Group.

After Shirin's family went home we posed for some pics. Had I known I would've worn something a little nicer...

Tita suggested that the outside was a better back drop.

The bearded one almost smiled.

I love this picture. We were at the Ethiopian restaurant in Charlotte.

We were so full of Ethiopian food that we went to Winthrop to show Tita all the changes and walk off some of the fullness.

We did honestly walk but sat on the swing to soak up the sun.

* For Christmas Gabriel got Shirin and Anahita a mock version of Chopped. He organized it, bought the ingredients, and with David's help carried out the "show" and videotaped it. At some point we'll get to see the finished product. I think the winner got some sort of prize, but the gift was the experience itself since both girls really like the show and really like to cook.