Happy Split Pea Soup Week

November 12 & 13, 2008

We had cold last week and rain this week, which has been followed by lovely bright crisp weather, and the leaves are covering the ground in drifts (fluffing up as they dry out). The smell is incredible, and takes me back to the wonder of my childhood. Of course, these days we don't burn them anymore. I have to wonder, as I've never questioned "the way things were" if the whole idea of raking up and burning your leaves is a brief aberration in how people live. Of course, at the time, it was a given in the fall, just as now, the sight of people with motors on their backs with nozzles blowing the leaves into heaps is common. I think they look so odd, and they still have to use rakes to bag the leaves to take them to where ever they are composted. Then the people who pay to have their lawns and walks "blown" have to fertilize their lawns and trees because they are creating such an artificial landscape, but it's all so that we can be normal, and fit in, and we forget how quickly what is normal changes.
With Star gone off to Michigan with Honour, I got to do the chores this week. It's been wonderful and inconvenient at the same time. When he gets back there's a lot of up-keep he's let go I'm going to be reminding him to get to. I have a bad habit of assuming that once something's been set in place it stays the same forever, but entropy is far too powerful for that. I keep noticing things that need to get fixed. Star may be good about the standard stuff, but he doesn't keep up with the repairs. I think that may be a metaphor for life, we need to keep up with repairs, or entropy gets us. I tend to think that once you've got something and set it in place, it should be there forever, but things don't really work like that.
The biggest adventure I had was that Monday I seem to have not latched the RRE cage properly, and all the rabbits got out. I've been "meaning to get to butchering them today" for a month now, and hadn't so the cage was really too crowded and I was trying to figure out how to fit some butchering in. Then Kat looked out the bathroom window and saw them hopping around the yard. Oops. I went out to catch them and was able to just shoo two back in- I guess the "big wide world" was too scary for them. Kat and I chased the others around some, but they are faster than us, so we went out and got a have-a-heart trap which I set out. When I went to check it and feed the recovered pair, two more right loped up to me- probably associating either the sound, or the sight of people with getting fed, and I was able to just lean over, pick them up and put them back. When I went over to the barn (the RRE cage is near the front of the house) another came up to me- which makes five back in the cage. There's one I haven't been able to catch yet- it keeps hanging around the cage, but runs and hides when I approach. I think it's getting enough to eat over in the chicken area. Actually, I've seen the chickens pecking at it and driving it back under the barn. The biggest problem from this adventure is that I've come to worry about the rabbits. Today I caught myself calling the rabbits "dears"- that's not good when you know you're planning on killing and cleaning them soon.
One of the young goats (this year's kids) has a problem too- she seems to have been gored by the other goats. I'm doing energy work on her, but other than seeking some penicillin- if she has an infection, I'm not sure I can do anything but wait and she if she heals. She's not bleeding- but there are scars on her abdomen. In theory Star didn't notice when it happened. I have to wonder if that's what happened to the other one. I didn't have the time to autopsy it, so I don't know if it was also gored- and I certainly don't want to exhume it now.
Last week I mentioned that we'd given the Zymbalta's kittens temporary names, but I didn't tell you that they are Prozac, Zoloft, St. John and Wort.

We picked Willow up at South Station last night. Jenny gave her some interesting bags to help her pack- like the vaccume storage bags, but no vaccume needed. Doesn't reduce the weight of your bag, but it does reduce the bulk. Interesting.
They went to an anime convention YoumaCon the first weekend. Jenny made Willow a costume from her favorite game.
They went to Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. Greenfield hadn't updated their website, and when they got there, the Villiage was closed for weekdays, so they just did the museum (meant to go back on the weekend to see the village, but didn't get to it). The HF museum had a special exhibit on costumes. They had costumes from Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Highlander, Terminator, Ghost-busters, 3 different Batman movies and the TV show. She mentioned that some of those early Star Trek costumes were not at the quality modern cosplayers expect- well, at least Willow expects of herself. (but then, she's good)
Another day they went to Marvelous Martin's Mechanical Museum which has antique arcade games. Willow loves (and is really good at) arcades- especially shooting, and they won about a thousand tickets together. Willow got a flashy bracelet that hurts my eyes. Jenny got a ninja statue.
She's trying to put the pictures she took on her photo bucket, so I haven't got them. Maybe next week I'll post the link.
They went to the Detroit Institute of Art and she spent a half an hour just looking at the Nightmare, which she really loves.
She made a blanket of Zero (the "dog" from Nightmare before Christmas) to cover her on the trip home, and she's giving it away at a party this weekend with a NMBC theme.
On the train back home she saw a tower that looked like "Isengard" from the Lord of the Rings movies- but she doesn't know what city in NY it was in.

As we passed through Wilton we actually saw that someone had strung lights along their porch (which could be just leftover halloween decoration, except that it was blue, and there was a lighted Christmas tree on each end of the porch. I couldn't help think of the Great Pumpkin. Charles Shultz wrote it to explore the idea that a kid could get confused between the different ways we celebrate different holidays. That certainly seems to have happened since we now hang different lights up for nearly any holiday. It seems that we are trying to homogenize them all, and beyond that, to extend them until it's all just one big holiday. There really needs to be time off in between.
I've been planning for some time to try and clean up our diet- In theory we're going on a "fast" (eating only simple healthy food) until the holidays. No sugar, no soda, no processed foods. As much as we probably eat better than many, less healthy things sneak in, and any time one is fighting stress, nutrition and not exposing yourself to allergens is important. When the goats dried up and I switched over to cows milk it became apparent that I do react to it. I haven't noticed a reaction to cheese yet, but will be watching for it. But aside from that- we need fast days, just as we need feast days- in the medieval sense of the word. Fast days were not no food- just no meat.
Oh, and tomorrow is the full moon, so by the old Celtic reckoning, that would be Samhain. And it might be the Winter-finding of the Norse- although neo-heathens usually celebrate that in October.

It's seemed odd with both Star and Willow gone, just me and Kat. I suppose it's easier to notice how different things are when you are the one at home- when you're traveling, you're in a different place than usual, and don't notice it. But we had half as many people as usual- so eating was off. I did the chores- which was just one other pull on my time. Getting Honour and Johnathan off we'd gone through his clothing looking for something for him to wear that wouldn't be embarrassing, but which he felt was not "new" and too good to wear moving furniture. We took a fresh look at his wardrobe and threw out a lot of things he's been wearing because "leaving the house" has meant either going to the barn for chores, or coming on errands with me to do heavy lifting. Since they didn't get off Thursday afternoon, Honour came to the evening RunValdr class- then since it's right across from Walmart, we stopped there and I picked him up a new hoodie, a couple pairs of pants and shirt. He needs boots too, but he's got to try them on, so I can't just grab them for him.
His being gone this week meant that we had to pack and unpack the van for the Holistic Fair in Milford ourselves. Kat came with me to help with the packing and set up. I hadn't realized when I scheduled it that they would say "crafts goods only". (Luckily, they let us include the stockings.) Without the silver we sold almost nothing. It's a lovely idea to have a fair for hand made crafts- but they really don't sell that well in my experience.
I was talking to my sister Liz today and she's been making hand-made jewelry and has started selling them at shows. (I think) we agreed that so much of the pricing is based on the expectations of the audience. I urged her to get a website going so I can see her stuff. Meanwhile I bumped into Mike who reminded me to send him the outline and text (and pics) for my website. Yes,... right, ...yes,... that too... any day now...
So no more fairs that are crafts only. We paid for the table fee, and it was only in Milford, but we sure didn't make money. So afterwards, we stopped at the Chinese place on the oval for dinner so that we'd have had at least one good thing to remember about the day. That worked. And we saw both Tom and Kim Hart who are working there (which Kat had known, although I didn't.)

I'm nearly done with the Tarot card I promised Raven to have done last March. I'd gotten it partly done then lost it. While working it up fresh this week I came up with a design I like better. As soon as that's done I'm starting the "Captain Gregg" painting. I'm also editing the draft of the article for Thorn magazine. (paid! only 2¢ a word, but still, it's a beginning.) And Honour suggested I try putting an add in a magazine for doll houses. If I can paint portrait miniatures for people to wear, I could paint them to hang in doll houses. I suppose it depends on what segments of the society will still have money to spend on such things. I'm sure there will be some and I just need to find them.
Other than that it's cooking, dishes, laundry, cleaning, (gosh we have a lot of dust bunnies!); I'm not sure why, but I stayed up late one night alphabetizing our old videos (I think I was trying to sort them to see if we could throw any away. I found 6 that I was fairly sure I'd never want to watch again. Out of more than a thousand.) And we spent far more time than I'd like trying to get Kat's computer going again. When she thought she'd blown the nozzle tube into the disc drive I took it over to the place Willow gets her computer fixed- but it's a PC place and Kat's got a Mac. So we took it down to Brian's place. Brian has opened up a computer store called "Just Works". It's exactly the kind of computer store I'd go to whether I knew him or not. He sells basic computers without the bells and whistles. Exactly right for people like me who don't want anything more than the basics. If he can't make it work, it won't be because it's not a brilliant idea, but that the people who'd love the concept didn't hear about it. He checked it, blew out a whole lot more dust, and diagnosed that the disc drive was broken, and memory could be added externally. We came home and Kat searched for those bits of hardware, and I ordered them. Sadly, we seem to have missed that the memory was in "two sticks" that totaled the "gig" of memory she's looking for, but won't work. We got that one off e-bay, and since I didn't have an account, and chose not to set one up, when Brian noticed the problem we couldn't figure out how to cancel the order (and it's here now- we'll have to try to re-sell it). The replacement drive isn't here yet. When it gets here, we'll take it to Brian.

What else has been going on? I got my tooth fixed today- originally supposed to be Monday, but Doc Roy got the flu and had to be rescheduled. It is so funny watching him be uncomfortable about giving me minimal xylocaine. I just prefer a brief wince to a long, drawn-out numbness wearing off. And there's a blood drive tomorrow- I don't want anything in my system for that.
This morning I noticed another old Obama flyer. As I put it into the "clean paper" bin, I thought yet again how much I'd appreciate a campaign that did their advertising on something more recyclable than the glossy mailings they all seem to use. But I also thought about Obama. He's got to get up in the morning, dress, brush his teeth, eat, kiss his wife and kids, like all the rest of us, then he's got 64,000 things to do we don't have. And I'm betting he's discovering all the things he'd hoped to do on which he won't actually be able to have much effect. There is a lot of power, but I bet it's really a lot less than most people think.

Another musing: When I wake up in the morning I am perfect- just the spirit of Tchipakkan who has a body wrapped around it so that I can participate in this wondrous world; use my body to move about and touch and see and smell and hear and interact with things. Then I get up and my body isn't quite as light and straight as I think of it, I notice that I move more like my father moved. I don't think I ever noticed it at the time, but when I observe with some confusion the not-me way that I am moving, it reminds me of memories of Dad, when he would come around to our rooms first thing to make sure we were up. When I go up and down stairs I discover that I'm not as quick and nimble as I think I am. It's so strange- inside I'm so much the same- maybe even better because of my perspectives, but when I get down to it, my body can't keep up anymore.

As I wrote, Honour and Johnathan came home. They'd left Friday morning, and got back today. I heard from Amina (can't remember what day). She called to ask me where Honour was, which was bizarre because I figured she must be in Michigan by then. Turns out she was, but the friend she was staying with had suspected that Amina might react badly, so only told her that she was coming for Honour's stuff, without telling her that Honour was there. I told Amina that I thought Honour was out there. Then the friend called and warned me not to let Amina know that. Too late (and why the heck not?) I do not understand people.

So they got back today, and Honour was going to rent a dolly to move the furniture into her apartment, so we bought the one we've been meaning to get for two years, so she could use it. Actually, she went out and picked it up for us. We checked websites and called Lowes and Home Depot, but what they had didn't look strong enough. We found it at a Tractor Supply place, and they even had a $5 off coupon which they'd e-mail to you. Honour waited and waited, but it didn't show up. But after she gave up and left, I discovered it in my junk mail. Darn. At least now we have the dolly we've been wanting.

Steve didn't come up for last week's class. He's been having a bad week. First he was laid off, then he threw his back out (I think), so anyway he wasn't traveling. Honour had asked him if he wanted to do the Michigan run with her, but he wouldn't have been any use for heavy lifting. When they dropped Honour's trailer over at Vicki and Peanut's he just picked it up and pushed it in place and Peanut thinks he's quite strong. Oh, and Honour says they drove through 4" of snow in places on the way back. Winter's coming.

The thing I remember reading this week is a new book, a sequel to The Divine Secret of the Yaya Sisterhood, (and Little Altars): Yayas in Bloom. Wow, that woman can write! I love the character development. I love the nostalgia. I love the affirmation that despite the problems it creates it's worth it to be yourself. I love the way the lesson is conveyed so well, without any preaching. I wish these letters were more like those novels. They seem so much like simply telling the stories of people's lives. Another thing I noticed was the decidedly pagan feeling in the books. I don't think that although they called Shep a godless heathen, that you could say that any of the characters considered themselves anything but good Christians. Yet the way Siddah learned about prayer when her brother was hurt, and Vivi's angry denunciation of the nun's description of the Virgin Mary were so very like the same issues discussed on the pagan e-groups I read that it was eerie.

What I've been watching is also major nostalgia- old episodes of MASH from the library. (actually, I got season 8 out first, and then went back for season 1.) A lot of my favorite episodes were apparently from Season 1. Also I was fascinated to see that in the first dozen shows they had Spearchucker, and Ugly John, and Hojon and Dish and I think they mentioned Painless... all of whom had drifted away by season 2 as they developed the TV MASH characters.

Not nostalgia was Heros- a show I'd wanted to see, but didn't because we really only get one channel here (since we don't have Ælfwine to go up on the roof and adjust the antenna anymore). Kat and I liked it, and now that Willow's back she's watching it. We especially like the little Japanese guy and his friend. I listen to it while I'm painting and have occasionally looked up to catch visual clues- so I'm pretty sure I've missed others. Maybe when I've seen the whole first season I'll take it out again and catch some of what I missed. I like that the movies from the library are free.

I'm still getting some horror movies I put on the queue for October- I watched I, Monster- a version of the Dr. Jeckyl Mr Hyde story with Christopher Lee. He did the transformation pretty much by acting- very little make up change. We also saw the new Hulk movie (apparently I never watched the old one), and Star ordered Dragonlance which was fun, although I don't think I could have taken it if I were just watching it instead of having it on in the background.

This week's holidays:

W-12 National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day, Old Teutonic Yule Festival

Th-13 Full moon, World Kindness Day, National Indian Pudding Day, Actor's Day.

F-14 National Guacamole Day, American Teddy Bear Day, Operating Room Nurse Day, Loosen Up, Lighten up Day,

S-15 National Spicy Hermit Day, American Recycles Day, I love to Write Day, National Bundt Day, National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. American Enterprise Day

S-16 National Fast Food Day, Hecate Night (Wicca), National Moms and Dads Day, Resident Aliens' Day, International Day for Tolerance, Transgender Day of Remembrance

M-17 National Baklava Day, Homemade Bread Day, Take A Hike Day

T-18 National Vichyssoise Day, Occult Day, World Fellowship Day, Mickey Mouse Day, Ned Ludd Memorial Machine-Smashing Festival

W-19 National Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day, Have a Bad Day Day, Thrift Day, Equal Opportunity Day, Alligator Wrestling Day

Tchipakkan

"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."

Abraham Lincoln



oh, and this was interesting:

vaccine dangers http://www.mercola.com/