Use What You Have

I rode my bike to work three times in the past two weeks! One of the pleasures of biking to work is riding along the Charles River and seeing the crew teams rowing. People who crew are inspiring. They’re out there every day, in the rain, in the cold, no matter what. I only bike to work when the weather is nice and I don’t have to run errands or take Astrid to school or pick her up from swim, etc., so it ends up being not very frequently. I like hearing the crew coaches through their megaphones. I always think how nice it would be to have someone following along behind me, yelling out encouragement as I go through my day. Sort of like a life coach. But since I can’t afford that, I have to use what I have. Which is myself. And it’s hard to be wise and encouraging all day.

At a recent birthday party, I was talking with Mary, a fellow mom (and fellow ex-Chicagoan!), about all her various projects. She’s a lawyer who’s writing a screenplay and starting a T-shirt company. When I jokingly said “one job’s not enough for you?”, she said she’s also been collecting wise sayings from yoga instructors to put into a book one day. I told Mary about my favorite yoga teacher of all time, Rolf Gates. I went to his class every week at Baptiste Yoga and somehow my body did things I never thought it could do. At one point in the class, we’d have a break where he’d tell a story, usually something from his life. I’d lie on my mat, listening, sweating, breathing, and feel inspired. It must be like how you’re supposed to feel in church. And then he’d finish up with “…and that’s why we do abs” and we’d go on with class.

“We show up, burn brightly, live passionately, hold nothing back, and when the moment is over, when our work is done, we step back and let go.” –Rolf Gates

Mary had heard the story about how Baron Baptiste and Rolf parted ways and we talked about how yoga teachers can be assholes in real life, and maybe she should expand her book to include other inspiring people. She related this story from when she was volunteering during art class last year. The kids were painting and ran out of blue paint and started freaking out. Ms. Iluna, not a yogi, but a wonderful art teacher, calmed them down, saying, “Children, children, it’s true we’re out of blue paint. But we have to use what we have.” Ms. Iluna is awesome. She would make a great life coach. In fact, maybe that's what she should do now that Astrid's school canned her because she made too much money and hired a cheaper, younger, art teacher. Anyway, that’s my mantra from now on: “use what you have.”

And my second mantra is, “if something feels bad, stop doing it.” After one of Eliot’s many doctor visits last month, we saw a display of various handouts at the checkout desk. One, that was for knee pain, said “If you are doing something that is causing pain to your knee, stop doing that thing, and the pain to your knee will stop.” I had to read that a couple times, thinking I was missing something. Why would they say something so completely obvious? We were cracking up and the nurse at the checkout desk said “You’d be surprised by the number of people who call to say that when they eat a certain food, they get a stomachache, so they want to talk to a doctor about it. I want to tell them to just stop eating that food.” I thought, “Yeah, people are stupid,” then I realized I was doing that very thing. For the past few months, whenever I drank coffee in the morning, I felt sick afterwards. So I switched to tea and now I feel much better. Duh.

My Edible Rewards

This was not the greatest year for edibles in my garden. First I planted peas and beans and the bunnies ate them. I put up rabbit fencing and planted again. They ate them again. Repeat process two more times. Finally, I have fairy-size plants growing with miniature peas and beans on them. It’s the weirdest thing.

The cucumbers were probably my most successful. I harvested enough for sushi a couple times and made 2 jars of pickles. It was my first time making pickles and Eliot mentioned the pickle episode from The Andy Griffith Show, where no one has the heart to tell Aunt Bea she makes lousy pickles, and even though Eliot swore he thought my pickles were good, truthfully, just like in the episode, they weren’t as good as “store-bought.” Then my cucumbers got some sort of virus where the leaves and stems turned yellow. And any remaining cucumbers were eaten by chipmunks or squirrels. Here's one pre-pickle:

The onions and spinach never came up. The rabbits ate the lettuce and beet leaves. The pepper plants never got that big, although one plant has a few fruits finally forming. The basil did well. Yay! I grew a lettuce-leaf variety which was perfect for tomato sandwiches. Unfortunately most of the sandwiches were made with bought tomatoes. So far I’ve gotten 2 ripe tomatoes (from 6 plants!) and they were good, although not as tasty as last year’s. But I have a lot of green tomatoes, so there's still hope.

Eliot is strongly suggesting sticking to flowers next year. I see his point, but what's life without homegrown tomatoes? And basil to go with them, of course. And I’d like to tweak that pickle recipe, so maybe a few cucumber plants. And dill for the pickles. I didn’t think of that this year and had to buy dill. And now that the rabbit fencing seems to be doing its job, I could probably plant a few peas, too...

Peas, 1; Bunnies, 0

I have two, count 'em, two little peas! Growing on one of the very stalks the bunnies chewed up. And my fencing seems to be holding. I have nine pea plants in various stages of growth, five bean plants, four cucumber plants, lettuce, beets, tomatoes, etc, etc. In other words, I have a garden again, ladies and gentlemen!

*%#! Bunnies

First, here's my amazing trellis that I forgot to post a picture of in my last post:

See the beautiful peas and beans making their way up the trellis? Here's a close-up from a few weeks ago:

Now, here is what's left of my peas and beans after the friggin' bunnies feasted:

I'm a peaceful vegetarian, but I found myself screaming at a baby bunny unlucky enough to be in my garden when I got there. My friend and fellow gardener counted 26 bunnies on the way to his garden the other night. Where's a coyote when you need one?

Gardening Angels

There’s so much craziness in the world. Ever since the Marathon bombing, it’s hard to feel safe anywhere anymore. I think that’s partly why I’m so into my garden this year. I feel so peaceful there. Eliot and Astrid gave me three angel statues for Mother’s Day. I had been looking for a buddha, but they’re crazy expensive. When I unwrapped the angels, my first thought was “huh,” but now I love them. I feel like they’re my guardian angels looking after my garden.

I read Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening and decided to build some raised beds and a trellis for my garden this year. Both items required very stressful visits to Home Depot. I hate Home Depot. It’s so intimidating and it takes an act of God to get someone to help you. I researched online to figure out the wood I needed, but once there, I couldn’t find that exact size in the store. A worker was walking by, so I told him I was building raised beds and needed 2"x10"x12'. He pointed to where the lumber was. I loaded the lumber onto the special lumber cart, then went to stand in line to get it cut into specific lengths (two 4' and two 2') by the same worker guy. After, I went back to the lumber aisle to get brackets and overheard this couple who started walking down the aisle, then the woman said, “Oh, wrong aisle.” The guy asked “Why?” And she answered, “That’s treated wood. We want untreated for our garden.” Shit! I said, “Excuse me, I overheard you talking. Did I just get the wrong wood for my raised beds?” The woman said, “Well, that’s treated wood—you can see the greenish color—so the arsenic in the wood will leach into the soil and then into your vegetables.” It's green! How did I not notice that I had green wood? I said, “But I told the guy that it was for raised beds and this is what he told me to get.” She explained that a lot of people use treated wood because it lasts longer, but it’s not as good for the garden. Her husband assured me that even though they cut it, I don’t have to buy it. So I followed them to the untreated wood aisle, found the size I wanted and stood in the cutting line again. When it was my turn, I explained the situation to the guy. He said, “You should use treated wood. That’s what people use. It lasts longer.” I explained that I was in a community garden and they wanted us to use untreated wood and I didn’t understand that I had gotten the wrong thing before. He didn’t answer, but made a show of putting the old lumber in a pile and, not as carefully as before, cutting the new lumber.

When I got home I did some research online about pressure treated lumber and found that they don’t use arsenic in it anymore, but I couldn’t find out what made it look green. Also, I don’t trust “acceptable levels” of anything. I’m glad I got the untreated lumber. It makes me feel better, like eating organic strawberries. They cost a lot more, but I’d rather not think about pesticides while I’m eating.

The trellis trip wasn’t as stressful, but almost. I had to find electrical conduit, which Mel said they could cut into 4' lengths, but Home Depot didn’t. Luckily I found some 5' lengths and bought those. Then I needed connectors, which I again had found online, but in the store, there were dozens of various kinds, and I had to search, because of course there was no one to help. Then I had seen the rebar by the lumber, and nylon netting was in the garden section, so I pushed my cart with the conduit sliding out every few feet the entire length of the store. But once I got it all in my garden, it was so easy to put together (with Eliot's help!). I’m so impressed with it. The raised beds look a little like Homer Simpson put them together, but the trellis looks great.

Follow Your Bliss

So Astrid was the honorary bat girl at Fenway Park last Friday. It was Neighborhood Night and the Red Sox were looking for Fenway affiliations to honor in their pre-game ceremony. They asked the Fenway Civic Association for an 8- to 12-year-old girl and Marie—someone we know from the Victory Garden and who’s very active in the community—suggested Astrid. We weren’t given a lot of details, just that she’d be on the field at some point and we’d get free tickets. We had planned to take Astrid to a game this year anyway, since she’s never been to one, and after living in the Fenway her whole life, she should know what all the fuss is about. At first when we told Astrid, she thought she was going to be Batgirl, the comic book superhero; she was a little disappointed when we told her it was about baseball. By the time Friday came, though, she started to get excited about it. We got there and met the bat boy, a 9-year-old named Owen, who was there with a whole entourage of family members, some of whom had their own tickets, but got to tag along with us. A Red Sox ambassador gave us special wristbands and took us all down to the field, where we watched batting practice for awhile. Owen, who had a baseball, was getting autographs from some of the players. Astrid asked one of them for an autograph, too, and when he saw she didn’t have anything to write on, he held up a finger and walked away. Several minutes later, he came back with a baseball for her. I thought that was so nice! I remembered his name, Lavarnway; turns out, he was the catcher. Then after awhile, the ambassador said he was going to take Astrid and Owen to the dugout, where the real bat boy was going to show them the bats or something. They were just sitting there when the players finished their batting practice. Most of them just walked past the kids. Then there was all this commotion and David Ortiz, the only player I recognized, was walking up. People were yelling to him, and Owen’s mom kept calling, “Big Papi, can you sign an autograph for my son!” He turned around and signed Owen’s ball, jersey, and a book that his grandfather had given him, then Astrid’s ball. He stood in front of the kids, talking to a reporter. Astrid was sitting behind him, yawning. I wish I got a picture of that! Then we went on a tour of  the Hall of Fame stuff—vintage jerseys, Babe Ruth and the curse, etc. The ambassador guy paused before the 2004 jersey and asked, “And everyone remembers what happened in 2004, right?” Astrid answered, “I was born!” After the tour, we were taken to the green room to wait until it was time to go onto the field for the ceremony. Astrid and Owen were announced, Wally the Green Monster kissed Astrid’s hand and ruffled Owen’s hair, pictures were snapped and it was over. We went to our seats in the Grandstand and watched the game.  After a couple innings, we were starving and walked around until we found the “Healthy Options” booth, where they had veggie burgers and veggie franks, tucked into a corner. Astrid had been talking pretty much nonstop about getting cotton candy. She wanted blue and we could only find pink, of course, so we walked around some more until we found a booth with the desired color for sale, then made our way back to our seats. She ate a few handfuls, then gave the bag to me, saying, “I don’t like cotton candy. Can I have some popcorn?” We made it until the seventh inning, when we couldn’t handle the freezing “spring” weather anymore and it was way past her bedtime.

The next day we did some errands, one of which was trying to buy handkerchiefs. In an effort to be green and not use Kleenex, we’ve been using handkerchiefs that were Eliot’s dad’s and my dad’s. They were starting to get worn out, but we didn’t know where to find new ones. We tried Marshall’s, thinking they could be in the Men’s Accessories section, which happens to be right across from the Kid’s section. A display of Monster High flip flops caught Astrid’s eye. She tried on a couple pairs, but they didn’t seem to have her size. She was devastated, then we noticed a few errant pairs in the next aisle. In her size! She tried them on, and every fiber of her being lit up. “Mama, can I get them? Will you buy them for me and I’ll pay you back? Oh, please!” I said yes, and she went bananas. “Thank you! You’re the best! I love these!” She carried them to the counter and was so excited that the cashier let her scan the price. She took them home and we cut the tags off. She counted out the money ($7) and thanked me about a hundred times, then put them on and wore them the entire rest of the weekend. We told her she couldn’t wear them to school this morning, but she made Eliot promise he would bring them to after-school so she could wear them home. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy about something. It was so funny. Being on the field at a Red Sox game and getting Big Papi’s autograph—eh, no big deal. But Monster High flip flops—whoo-hoo!

Household Tip #1

When there's just a little dish soap left, put it upside down in a cup. The cup keeps the bottle balanced and allows you to use every last drop. Eliot thinks I'm brilliant!