Mother's Day Weekend

I've had a wonderful Mother's Day all weekend long! It started with Saeed cooking me delicious Ghormeh Sabzi Friday night. Not long after finishing dinner I was scooping litter upstairs when Saeed came bearing "gifts" -- he was carrying Cyrus up the stairs to come say "hi" to Nama (I'm no longer Noma.) Saturday after decorating the table with flowers and two cute cards (one from Cyrus) Shirin took me to see the movie Babies, link to trailer here. What a great movie to see with your pregnant daughter! (We talked all the way home about the way babies from Westernized cultures are raised compared to their less modern counterparts. I think we both agreed that the non-Westernized babies, though at more risk of disease and mortal danger, seemed much happier and whined less.) After dinner Gabriel stayed to play Catan, leaving late to meet up with his buds, because he knew I wanted to play. Then this morning I awoke to find that Tita had posted a very sweet slide show on her blog with pictures of our family in the early days along with very loving captions. Her paper card is still working its way here via snail mail.

There is no manual that accompanies babies -- it should come out right after the placenta. Raising good kids is a crap shoot. No matter how well intentioned you are as a parent it's so hard to know what's 'right'. When my daughters say nice things about me as a mother I feel surprised and almost embarrassed. I think of all the things I did wrong and could have done better, almost as if they deserve an apology for all my goofs. So I am grateful that they think they had a good mother, so grateful.

So thank you Saeed, Shirin, Anahita, and Gabriel. I feel very loved and appreciated.

(some pictures will follow later)

Shirin's Graduation Gets Posted In October!

Go here.

Tired Of The Big Box Stores?

I am, and yet the lure of finding so much stuff in one spot for less money is very appealing, yes? We all know that where we spend our money speaks volume about our values and what sort of towns and communities we want to build and live in.

Enter The 3/50 Project, a movement not unlike the slow food movement to counteract the spread of the fast food industry, to get folks to shop locally at small businesses. The idea is that you pick three independently owned businesses, no chain stores, and commit to spending $50 there each month. The money of course supports local issues through taxes, local citizens through salaries, and other local expenditures.

The originator of the 3/50 project has extended this effort to include independently owned restaurants and eateries, aptly naming this movement "Eat down the street."
I love the concept but considering the town I live in and the meatless options in my town I'm not sure how successful I'll be! Also, Saeed and I don't spend $50 three times a month at restaurants. Our favorite restaurant, Saigon Bistro, is family owned but located in Charlotte and we probably only go there once a month on average. We do eat fairly often at the local Earth Fare for obvious reasons and feel good about supporting them. Earth Fare is a chain but a relatively small one and whose philosophy we strongly agree with.

Anyway, the ideas are all good and I just wanted to pass on the concept to others who may want to incorporate these ideas into their spending choices.

A Letter From Eric

I ran across this letter on the web; I understand how he feels and his need to write the letter. I had to write my own, remember? I am very interested in what event or thought process turns an omnivore into a vegetarian for ethical concerns (not nutritional concerns, as this is out of concern for the self.) Is it an evolution of moral and ethical standards? Is it the same turning point for each? I would love to know the psychology behind the decision to no longer eat something that one thinks tastes really good.

I particularly like the second half of this letter, the part after "All of this when it was unnecessary to do so." It probably gives some of the most common reasons people can't make the break once they've become aware of the horrors behind their meal. Too bad it's so easy to hide behind the plastic wrapped meat tray from the store. If we all had to watch and hear what happens to the animal we're about eat before each meal...

Dear thousands of cows, chickens, fish, shrimp, pigs and insects,

I paid someone to hold you captive in tight quarters. To remove your genitals, your beaks, your tails and to brand you, all while wide awake and without anesthesia. To forcibly impregnate you and keep you that way all your life. I paid them to remove you from your children and from your parents at birth. And finally to kill you. I paid them to treat you as a commodity, a slave, as an object that existed only for my benefit. As if you could not suffer, or as if it didn’t matter if you could or not. All of this when it was unnecessary to do so. I did this solely for my own pleasures. A tasty meal, a full belly. You gave me comfort, you gave me a way to fit in with others and with the crowd. You gave me a center piece around which I and my family could celebrate. You were there to fill an empty space when I had a longing that I didn’t know how to fix. You made me feel safe. I know you can’t answer me directly, but I want to make this right. I feel I do not yet understand how to do this fully. Until then I will do what I can.

I love you,
Eric

Wesley The Owl

Boy did I luck out with this one. Wesley the Owl is the book I bought Saeed for Christmas. It appealed to me on multiple levels but I had to be sure that Saeed would like it, not me. Happily, we both loved the book.

The subtitle ~ The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl ~ hints that this isn't just another human-and-their-animal story but the account between a wild (under normal circumstances) animal and the human to which he attached himself. Owls are loners, have and keep one mate for life, and should never be kept as pets. Stacey was a biologist at CalTech when she was offered to adopt a four-day old owl chick. Normally abandoned owlets are raised with the intent of teaching them survival skills and releasing them when safe to do so. This chick had suffered permanent nerve damage in his wing which would prevent him from ever being to hunt sufficiently for survival, so Stacey was being asked to be the owl's mother for his entire life.

This account of Stacey's years with Wesley is peppered with bits of scientific information about owls specifically and biological mechanisms in general.The bulk (and the best!) of the story is, of course, the crazy and challenging things that happen to her (and Wesley) as they learn how to live together. Many times, after a particularly meaningful lesson, she would refer to the new knowledge as "The Way of the Owl." She writes splendidly and I laughed out loud every few pages. Often Wesley's antics were too adorable and I just wanted to kiss him through the pages. I wanted to bury my face in his feathers and smell that enticing owl odor she describes as "like maple syrup but not as sweet, something closer to butterscotch and a comfy pillow all in one." Awesome book.

See Wesley for yourself:

My Buddy Lupe

I feel that the upstairs cats are often left out of my blog. Since they keep our company primarily in the upstairs environment of bathrooms and bedrooms there are fewer blog-worthy opportunities for things like stealing our Tofurky sandwiches. In some sense, though, they get the better end of the deal - the snuggley bed environment. Lupe, Layli, and Banu have their own rotation on the bed in terms of who gets which armpit and when.

Lupe is also my computer buddy. She frequently sits on the small space in front of my monitor and swipes at my fingers while I type. Sometimes she's too tired for all that and just spreads out to snooze, with her rear paws resting on the knuckles of my typing fingers. Then there's the tail chase. She is the tail-chasing-ist cat I've ever known. She twirls around after her tail on the bedroom floor in the morning while I get ready for work, in the bathtub while I scoop litter, and on my computer table while I'm (unsuccessfully) trying to view my monitor screen.

She has a beautiful face, strong white whiskers, and a full fat tail.

I've mentioned before the cute golden tufts of fur protruding between her toes. Her fur is thick and luxurious.

Notice Teddy in the background on my desktop. Lupe is sleepy.

Now alert, she's zeroing in on the wiggly tail.

Almost got it.

Got it! Holding it down with her left paw she happily licks the tip.

Sometimes Saeed and I think back to where Lupe and her sisters Chappu and Delila (Tita's kitty) came from. They were part of a litter (their brother Gus - renamed Duncan -  was adopted by my friend Linda) on some rural property owned by a grumpy old man who threatened his daughter that if he saw any cats or kittens he would shoot them. The daughter spoke to Shirin and together they removed the kittens from the land and the rest is history. Lupe and Chappu bring so much joy to our lives and it's mind-boggling that they could have been killed for no other reason than some guy didn't want them there. I then sadly think about all the other animals who aren't lucky enough to be saved from grumpy old men and get shot or burned or hanged or drowned or simply live a precarious life on their own. I pick up Lupe and nuzzle her warm soft fur to gain comfort and reflect on the eight precious creatures with whom we share our lives.

The Fruit Fight

 .... continued from yesterday's post....

The misbehaving video finally uploaded:

Videos Of Last Visit

Cyrus and I went outside after his nap and while Shirin was still napping. We went from bush to bush to follow some very buzzy bees but ended up under a maple tree, releasing the little helicopter seeds into the wind.


These flowers smelled SO GOOD! I love it when Cyrus tries to reattach the petals that have fallen.


After admiring the flowers Cyrus and I found a fairly steep hill to run down together. We'd meet at the top, then hold hands and on the count of three start running down the hill, with me letting go at just the right time so Cyrus could safely wipe out before reaching the bottom. After doing this about 20 times it was time for me to sit out the next few runs and record Cyrus doing it on his own. Notice how he calls me "Noma".


No doubt, falling is the best part. It's hard to hear but after some prompting he says,"Onetwothreego."


This time I think he just says, "mumble, mumble, GO". I love the way he pumps that left arm to propel himself up the hill. D'ya think he's tuckered out yet?



Anything to make Noma laugh.



The fruit fight:  This one is very cute but has failed to upload twice. I'll post it in a separate post if I ever get it uploaded successfully.


Saeed can't kiss Cyrus enough. Those of us who have raised kids know that at some point we won't be allowed to be so free with our kisses.



It's amazing to me that he already knows some of the letters. W is for waffle, P is for minnow.


You've seen Cyrus react to the word "ghost" in previous videos. This weekend during some silliness it seemed that he became afraid of the ghost sounds, so we reassured him it was a happy ghost. I went online and we even looked at pictures of smiling, happy ghosts. At the point of this video he doesn't seem scared any more and continues to reassure himself by saying "appy dose" (happy ghost.) Finally Saeed gets the original cute ghost reaction from him, the one he learned from Gabriel.

Frustrations Of Trying To Be Green

"My real problem with these issues is that EVERYTHING we do has an impact. For example, I used to use paper napkins. Trees getting cut down for my napkins. Then I switched to cloth and I was using water to clean them, adding soap to the water stream, and using electricity to iron them. Now I'm back to paper. I find this topic as frustrating as the latest health study results" -- anonymous contributor

Boy do I know how she feels. Sometimes you don't know what the heck to do when A) you hear conflicting "expert" opinions,  B) all the options seem equally bad, C) you try to do what's right and then find out it's not at all right, and then finally D) nobody seems to really know.

Regardless of the frustration I persist because I can't help but want to do it as right as I can. I researched the paper v.s. cloth napkin issue and came up with the following information. And by the way, the photo above is of a forest in Sumatra that was illegally razed to make paper products, devastating an area that contains some of the richest biodiversity in the world.

Cloth products:

Greener: Cloth—Cotton
If you are really careless in your treatment of cloth napkins and dishtowels (like running a load of hot-water wash for a few barely-soiled napkins), paper can be the more eco-friendly option. But if you approach your cloth towels and napkins conscientiously, cloth is the greener option. Some say that washing cloth must be more energy-intensive than using paper, but electric dryers are actually twice as energy efficient as the manufacture of paper towels. When you factor in all of the components of making paper towels or napkins (harvesting the material, processing and bleaching it, packaging it, shipping it, stocking it at a supermarket, transportation to and from the store to purchase it, etc) all for a single use, you find that the paper towels and napkins are about twice as energy-intensive and create more greenhouse gases overall. A cloth napkin or dishtowel may go through similar processes to get to your kitchen drawer, but it will stay there for many, many years, rather than being sent directly to the landfill.

Greenest: Cloth—Recycled and/or Hemp, Linen or Organic Cotton
Buy used cloth napkins and dishtowels. You can find lovely and fun ones at second hand stores, at flea markets and on eBay. If you are buying new dishtowels or napkins, remember that conventional cotton is a notoriously nasty crop in terms of pesticides, so aim to use organic cotton. Alternatively, choose hemp or linen which are more sustainable than conventional cotton.

Ok now for the paper products:

Not-Green, At All: Paper—Virgin Fiber, Chlorine Bleached  

(EEK!)

Virgin fiber is that which comes straight from a tree. Doesn’t it seem a waste to use a tree for a single-use item? Well how’s this: If every household in the United States replaced one roll of virgin-fiber paper towels with 100 percent recycled paper towels, we could save 1.4 million trees. If every household in the United States replaced just one package of virgin fiber napkins with 100 percent recycled ones, we could save 1 million trees. With those numbers in mind, using virgin fiber for single use items seems simply outrageous.
Next up, bleach. Gleaming, bright white paper towels and napkins don’t get that way naturally. There are several methods of bleaching paper products, some far better than others. The one to avoid is Elemental Chlorine (chlorine gas). This is the worst of the bunch, and is responsible for the release of chlorinated compounds like dioxins and furans, which are powerful carcinogens and mutagens. These chemicals can adversely affect immune systems and reproductive systems and are dreadful for aquatic life and wildlife. Bad, bad, bad. Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) process may be okay—this method employs a chlorine derivative such as chlorine dioxide rather than chlorine gas, and is not the best choice, but is a cleaner process than the use of elemental chlorine.

Greenish: Paper—Partially Recycled, Alternative Bleaching
If you can’t find paper products that are made of 100 percent recycled paper, look for ones with at least some recycled content. Also, steer away from products bleached with elemental chlorine and instead chose ones that use alternative bleaching. Process Chlorine Free (PCF) is a great choice, this process does not use not bleach with chlorine or its derivatives. Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) is the best choice—this is pulp that has never been bleached with chlorine or its derivatives.

Green: Paper—Totally Chlorine Free, 100 Percent Recycled
There are two types of materials used in recycled paper products: Post-consumer fiber and recovered fiber. Post-consumer fibers come from paper that has already been used by the consumer and sent to recycling. Recovered fiber is from paper waste leftover in manufacturing, such as trim, scraps, unused stock. When you are buying recycled paper products, strive for 100 percent recycled paper with a minimum of 90 percent post-consumer materials. The higher the post-consumer percentage, the more paper is being saved from hitting the landfill. Also look for Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) paper towels and napkins—these are brown, and a very pretty brown at that.

Some final tips:

Paper Towel and Napkin Green Tips

• Purchase paper towels made of 100 percent recycled materials.
• Look for paper products that contain a minimum of 90 percent post-consumer waste.
• Choose unbleached paper towels. If those are unavailable, opt for process chlorine free (PCF) next, or elemental chlorine free (ECF) as a last choice.
• Choose paper towels and napkins that have no added pigments, inks or dyes (say goodbye to that floral printed border).
• Select packaging with minimal environmental impact, such as that made of recycled and recyclable materials; imprinted with safe inks; and containing no toxic metals, dyes or inks.
• Seek items having the largest amount of product to minimize packaging, for example, high-capacity hardwound roll towels have 800 feet or more. Some brands are puffier and allow for fewer paper towels per roll or napkins per package.
• Avoid folded paper towels, it is too easy to use too many of them.
• Look for paper towels that are wound on a 100 percent recycled core.

Cloth Napkin and Dishtowel Green Tips

• Only wash when soiled. Most adults don’t really dirty a napkin after every meal.
• Designate a place to store “in-use” napkins and use the same one until it is dirty.
• If you have a large family, designate a napkin ring for each member to identify their napkin between meals.
• Toss dirty napkins and dish towels in with other laundry.
• Use eco-friendly laundry detergent.
• Wash with cold water and line dry when weather permits.

I hope this helps a little bit with this issue. Now on to the other 8 zillion issues.

(information 'recycled' from Care2.com)

The Help

This was our last book club book and I liked it very much. In fact I couldn't put it down. Here is the synopsis from Kathryn Stockett's website:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

My clubbers agreed that it was a great book but one person commented that Stockett wrote it like she knew it would get optioned for a movie (and it has.) My take on it is that it is very plot driven - not that there's anything wrong with that. Stockett writes well and I felt her character development was fine, but if you're looking for an esoteric Pulitzer prize winner this probably isn't it. If you want to read about the black domestic help in the 60's in Mississippi and about characters so compelling that you can't put the book down, then you need to read it. (Sorry, I can't give you my copy - I borrowed it from the library.)

Interestingly, the one clubber that didn't care so much for this book is a 40 year old southern woman from Mississippi who grew up with the scenario depicted in the book. She acted very defensively and felt the author should have included story lines in which the white families were shown to have treated their help very well, as she claims hers did. Stockett did actually include some accounts of just that and we pointed that out to her. Halfheartedly she agreed, still feeling the story was a sensational misrepresentation of the true relationship between the families and their hired help. No doubt many white southern families did treat their domestics well (the doctor I work with told me many a tale of how is family supported their help in ways both financial and emotional), but in my mind that doesn't compensate for or remove the despicable racism and inequality that defined their lives. Those of us alive during the 60s can attest to the attitudes of many white southerners to the black folks in their towns. It warn't pretty.