Tag: holiday

Happy Birthday to Me!

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For some reason I dressed all in shades of brown with black and white highlights today. I likely look like a monkey, but as my big bro points out, I don’t have to smell like one too. I could shower. But I didn’t, because it’s my birthday and I didn’t want to. Happy birthday to me, I live in a zoo, I look like a monkey, and I smell like one too. Oh, wouldn’t it be awful if I smelled like “one/TWO”? Eegads! Then again, I’d fit in at the park where I cruse the homeless cliques in my never ending search for a good source of TB.

I also didn’t want to drive the kids to school so the hubster did it. I stayed in my jammies until 9:30 in the a. to the m. Then I bought myself a full-fat iced mocha from a local joint who gave me a 15% discount on account of how awesome I am (and how I rocked my Catcard). Heck, for all I know the coffee wasn’t even Fair Trade and it came in a one-time use (but recyclable) plastic cup that didn’t even drip on my shirt. Afterward, I went to my son’s school on the premise that I would train to volunteer in the library. I was really only going to hang out with Anna who was casual cool in a Japanese coy T. We went to lunch.

Food was a big part of my big dia. I got some backyard tomaters from Molly and popsicles for FOUR kids plus myself from Kathy and hung out with Cassandra and Yvonne. Then Todd-o and Jesse took me and the ankle biters out for dinner. YUM-O and no dishes bitches! Please excuse my tone. I think my husband’s near beer has gone to my head. Luckily, he limited himself at one. That was his joke, btw. He’s hilarious.

Even the chickens helped me celebrate. They each gave me a perfectly shaped and colored egg. Thoughtfully, Flower treated me to an egg from the nest and not one randomly left in cacti or the coop floor. Jesse’s aunt sent me a pewter photo frame and of course my grandmother sent me a check for $25. Kari sent me a cardi and so did the dentist and a restaurant. My dad wished me happy birthday on his blog and my mother sent me a “card is in the mail” e-mail. I live a fat life!

Finally, because it’s my birthday, I’m not going to bother with “visual interest” on my blog. Now it’s time to leave you now (right bro?).

Who Lives Down There?

For Earth Day I taught 300 Borton children and adults how to determine “what lives down there?” Here I am.

My daughter is the noticeably bored kid in blue. The first language of the kid staring at the ground up front is Kurdish. I’m hoping they don’t represent how miserable everyone else was at the only station in full sun.

For three years, I’ve been visiting the bird sanctuary at my children’s school and staring at a variety of ground holes. The first year, I walked around a couple of times watching Anna and betts struggle with irrigation while noticing the subterranean homes of the desert critters. Jesse was in Iraq and so my attention was divided. Mostly I remember the striped shirt I wore on both visits. The second year was focused on pulling buffel grass and looking at ground holes. I don’t remember what I wore. This third year we’ve worked on getting children and families into the bird sanctuary. Since I’d spent three years thinking of Wonderland down those rabbit holes, I was elected to run a station on ground hole identification. I wore a striped skirt.

Here’s your minilesson:
1) Where is the hole located? Is it elevated or level with the ground? Is it out in the open or under a bush or between rocks?
2) How big is the hole? Is it small for insects or ants? Is it medium sized for a rodent of some sort? Is it large enough to accommodate a coyote? Measure the height/width of the entrance for more precise identification. In general you’ll look for holes smaller than 3 inches, between 3 and 8 inches, and greater than 8 inches in diameter.
3) What shape is the hole? Circular holes typically belong to rodents. You’re likely to find lizards in semicircular holes. Ovular holes will house tortoises, for example.

You can take note of other details too like if it has a silky barrier to it (you can expect a spider in that hole) or whether the homeowner is tidy or messy. Sometimes another animal will move into an abandoned hole. I showed the kids all kinds of photos of animals with their holes, including burrowing owls and kangaroo rats.

At this point, I asked the kids to look around the sanctuary to see if they can guess “who lives down there?” If they wrote down the answers to the three questions I gave them and send a letter to me using the school’s post office, I would help them identify ground holes in their yards or nearby parks. The kids were pretty cool, but the adults giggled when I invited everyone to tell me about their holes. I have received no letters thus far.

Check out more pix of our awesome Earth Day. Sadly, the composting station didn’t get photographed. The kids really got into worm poop.

Garbage Soup Redeux

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I’m reposting a excerpt from a blog I wrote last year about Valentine’s Day. Partly because it got a good response and I like praise and partly because the holiday is a loser holiday for Jesse as I am never materially satisfied. Either it’s too much or not enough.

In the next few days I plan to come up with gift suggestions to make Jesse’s life easier like fair trade organic chocolate or bath and body products I might actually use or maybe a Prius limo. Honestly, I think I might like a composter even though I have no clue what I’d do with good dirt out here in the desert. Maybe one of you will see something to put on your list.

And now for old news…

++++++++++++++

February 12, 2007

Please don’t go out on Valentine’s Day and drop a chunk of change on flowers that were coated in pesticides, kept in a green house, and shipped across the country. What is that supposed to say? “I love you so muchly that I’m giving you something unnaturally begotten. Also, in its making a part of the world was poisoned. Lastly, even with the aspirin dissolving in the water, it’s doomed to die leaving nothing to show for the cash. THIS is the symbol of my love for you.” Please. Save your money. Buy a plant. I hear that bamboo palm is good for taking formaldehyde out of the air.

…

I am compelled to request that you forget the expensive roses! Instead, share this recipe for Garbage Soup, from a Sonoran Desert cookbook (with editorial from me). It would be good for your wallet, the environment, and an honest statement about the longevity of love.

INGREDIENTS:
water (the elixir of life)
vegetable waste (eggplant sounds like elegant fare for a Valentine dinner, but gack!)
coffee grounds (from the pot you shared over morning breath)
eggshells (you already walked on them so they are nicely crushed)
other similar kitchen waste (so not the shit you sling at each other like monkeys after the kids are in bed)
not grease (this is about living plants not the yummy goodness of slaughtered lambs)

DIRECTIONS: Chop waste in food processor or blender with equal parts water. Mix it up until it’s as convoluted as your fights. Bury soup around outer edges of plants along side the hatchet.

Commercial fertilizers can kill beneficial microorganisms in the soil. This recipe for plants can be used in lieu of those fertilizers. Can you feel the love?

Kakefuda Furoshiki

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I haven’t, and may not find time to, wrap my Christmas gifts. Maybe that’s a good thing because I just stumbled across this You Tube video.

This is furoshiki, the Japanese art of gift wrap. Kakefuda in Kyoto, Japan is such a cool place. Judging by the website, that is. Go see it. I visited Kyoto in 1991, but was so busy looking for a McDonald’s that I never saw such a store! Not that I would have had money to shop, but I could have looked.

Black Friday: A Mad, Mad World

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My kids have their toy catalogs circled in fat sharpie. Family have requested the lists. I know at least two people who plan to get a 4 a.m. head start on Black Friday. Bah Humbug. Sigh, not really. I like buying stuff and I’m not immune to marketing. I’m thinking about my shopping to-do list too.

I will do most of my purchasing for kids at Kid’s Center, which is nearly the best place on earth. Their website isn’t that exciting, but their tiny store is incredible. Their sales staff knows every thing about every great, fantastic, spectacular toy and book ever. Kid’s center is pricey, but soooo worth it. I’ll do a fair amount of shopping at other places.

A Greater Gift has a catalog of fair trade items from around the world. Purchases benefit the artisans directly. I have bought clever wooden puzzles and a few other things and have been pleased with the value and quality. It’s like shopping at the UNICEF store. For fair trade clothing, I shop at Fair Indigo. Think Land’s End with a conscience. Not much organic, but we all start somewhere.

Speaking of green choices, my sister-in-law Jennifer, the one in CA and not the one in TX, though I don’t think the one in TX would be opposed, just that I have two sisters-in-law named Jennifer and the one in CA turned me onto Greener Choices. It’s a Consumer Reports site that should aid in determining if a product is truly green or if it’s a green wash. The easiest green gift guide I have found is, of course, at Tree Hugger. You browse by the interest of the person on your list.

Heifer International has been my place to go for wedding presents of late, but not everyone appreciates a rabbit trio they don’t get to keep. Then again, if you are thinking of getting my kids rabbits, we would like to have them kenneled in another country. Donations to charities are perfect this time of year and great for the taxes in April. Speaking of which, I know a church in need of $90K towards their HVAC. You might be able to find their link to the left (the GSP website is temporarily down).

A Borton parent/pal, Alex, put me onto Etsy where people sell their folk art. You can even look at artists near you and purchase locally. There’s plenty of knitery, jewelry, and stuff you wouldn’t want. But there are also beautiful quilts, funky accessories, and, uh, stuff. I wouldn’t have a use for these gloves but you have to admit they are CLEVER.

In the past, I’ve tried to ask people to not buy us stuff. We don’t have the room, it sends the wrong message, blah blah blah, whatever my reasoning was. In retrospect, that’s a ridiculous selfish request because people like to give, especially at Christmas. Darned everyone’s generosity! I can only control my own choices and I won’t be fighting the crowd at the mall grabbing one of a million factory produced doo-dads that we “must have” and try to pass it off as specially chosen for the special people in my life. I will try to focus on the people on either end of my purchases – those from whom I buy and to whom I give.

Halloween Isn’t for Bores

It looks like Brittany Spears has a new Halloween costume. I saw on Perez Hilton that she’s got those Hollywood leach lips. She’s also got a head start on her tricks as she ran over the foot of a photographer on her way out of the doctor’s office. Hmm, the mind reels with possibilities for dressing up to honor this inspiring falling star.

My favorite costume ever was bestowed upon me by my big bro waaaay over a decade ago and I’ve seen it plenty since. I taped a giant gift bow to my shirt and attached an over-sized card that read, “To the World: From God.” But then Jack assures me that he really thinks I am God’s gift to the world.

Jack is great at costuming because he never buys anything pre-made. He also adds a sick twist on his costumes. He might, for example, take something sweet and innocent like the Easter Bunny and make it sinister. He might give it vampire fangs or a thorny crown. Maybe that’s too sinister. Sorry Jesus. Thank God I can get forgiveness on Sunday.

Going along with my boring ideas about helping others and staying healthy and not polluting the planet, I hoped that my 30 friends, excluding Tom because he really doesn’t talk to me anymore, might get inspired and make costumes this year. Keep your money in your pocket and stay away from the vinal – unless you want to do some dominatrix stuff. You know, I don’t want to judge.

If you need help coming up with an idea, here are a few from Heckel on The Daily Camera:
* Smear black mascara under an eye and tape a pea to your chest. You’re a black-eyed pea.
* Wear all black, except for one arm. You’re the Def Leppard drummer’s severed arm.
* Go as Samberg and Timberlake’s d*** in a box.
* Duct-tape your body sticky-side-out and cover in popcorn and candy wrappers and look like a movie theater floor.
* Tape mirrors on your body, and you can be everyone else.
* Wear pink and tape a shoe to your head. Say you are used bubble gum.
* Instead of pretending you are a cat but are really just wearing your underwear and looking like a stripper, why not be honest? Be a stripper.

And I hope to see pix of each of you. You can post them here or on your own website, but let me see them. I’m thinking of being a soccer mom this year. Hold on… van, check, soccer balls, check, grassy socks all over the place, check, half consumed water bottles with flotsam floating in them, check. Oops. I’m already a soccer mom.

High Fructose Corn Coma

Parrish and George are fifty kinds of excited about Halloween. Parrish wants to be Luke Skywalker as a Jedi and so we need to find him a black robe. He thinks George should be Princess Leah. She pretty much wants to do whatever Parrish wants her to do, but this time around she figured maybe she’d be Tinkerbell no matter what – until she got a honeybun wig from Grammanina.

My kids didn’t trick-or-treat their first few years of life. I know this is one of the things that makes me a very bad mommy. Ask any kid, especially mine, and they will tell you the same. When my kids finally did go trick or treating, we hit up maybe four or so houses.

As the years passed, I’ve eased up and they visit many houses, but after the first couple of days of tooth rot and widespread wrapper droppings, I put the candy out of reach. I don’t need the lectures. You do in your house as you wish and I’ll do in mine.

One year I thought I’d get the kids to go door-to-door collecting for UNICEF, so maybe they could be doing some good in this world alongside the consumption. But I’m all together too lazy for that.

I’m not too lazy to buy things on-line. So this year, I went in search of child and earth friendly candy and came across this article on Green Halloween Candy.

I bought the College Farm stuff because not only are the lollipops made out of stuff I can pronounce, but the wrappers are made for composting. On the other hand, I paid nearly equal in postage what I paid for the product. I figure I’m cheap in other areas. I’ll be extravagant in this one.

Ingredients: Citrus Blast – Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Tapioca Syrup, non-GMO Citric Acid, Organic Lemon Oil, Organic Orange Extract, Organic Lime Extract, non-GMO Fruit and Vegetable Colors.

Chocolate: Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Tapioca Syrup, Organic Chocolate Liquor, Organic Sunflower Oil, Sea Salt, Organic Chocolate Extract, Organic Vanilla.

After getting the links in order to post this, I realized the following:
1) These lollipops are on sale, but I didn’t order from the sale page.
2) These lollipops will probably be sold at one of my local organic food stores.
Darn and double darn my zeal!