Watching Star Wars is Now a Thing

Let me describe for you what is happening in the scene below.

Also a game of Exactly How Much Stuff Can We Fit In The Hammock?

Lynnette’s train of thought: “Oh, there’s a hammock in the basement?! Maybe I’ll relax and read in front of the fire.”

Actual series of events: Luke (helmet) pilots the speeder around the planet of Endor while Leia (small boy) and ewok (me) hold on for the ride.

To those of you who heard me profess how I had absolutely no desire to ever watch or gain knowledge of Star Wars I say, “Cute kids be cute.”

And it’s important to be able to recognize at least some characters and story lines when playing Star Wars while adorable children, duh.

Unless, of course, you're playing Jedi Knight vs Wonder Woman, but that's a different story.

While I still have no intention to watch Star Wars at the behest of a future partner, I will give in and watch some for these two boys.

Grey Hair and Sisyphus

A momentous occasion marking the passing of age: Today, I discovered my first grey hair.

There it is, perched atop my head.

How do I interpret this?

(1) The part of my personality that is a 60 year old woman who loves crosswords, birding, and Antiques Roadshow has decided to show itself physically.

Alternately:

(2) Girl's hair goes grey at 22! Undeniable proof that millennials have it harder than any previous generation!

Alternately:

(3) Blah-de-blah genetics.

Alternately:

(4) I'm just distinguished.

Does this hair give me license to be mysterious and mischievous?
Oh tell me it does.

A witty phrase marking the passing of age: Two days ago, my friend called me their "sisyphusian hero."

Able to work valiantly toward nothing, capable of toiling toward the uncertainty, the lack of progress that we all will face.

And so,

(5) The marks of adulthood have upon me descended.

I shall not pluck it out.

In the City

Below you will find more evidence that I am (1) a country girl, (2) terrible with machines, and (3) likely to one day have an interaction on the street not go so well.

My housemates let me borrow their car for the afternoon, so yesterday I ventured down to Brattleboro for a day of shopping at the co-op and generally eating too much.

I know how co-ops work. Nothing at all strange there. Unless you want to count the men in skirts and lipstick doing their grocery shopping as strange, but I call that fucking awesome.

The general situation gets slightly more embarrassing and interesting as I stand in front of the "pay and display" meter at the public parking lot, baffled for all I'm worth as to how it works.

This is the part where a friendly stranger steps in to help the visibly incapable girl who JUST WANTS TO PARK WITHOUT GETTING TOWED, OK?

Used to lots in Minnesota where you get a ticket, stay as long as you like, then return the ticket and pay for the amount of time that you've parked, the name "pay and display" passed straight over my head.

You pay first. Then you get a ticket and display it on your dashboard, the friendly stranger explains.

This leaves me with mental palm to mental face. The obvious always escapes me.

They say you never know who you'll meet in Brattleboro. It's full of artists, organic hippy nutters, graduate students, and, in the warmer months, people without tops on. (There are apparently a distinct lack of public indecency laws in the town.)

The friendly stranger turns out to be Boxcar Jim, a semi-itinerant, sometimes-musician who was just kicked out of his on-again-off-again girlfriend's house last night and could really use any spare change you might have.

Will 30 cents do? I just spent all my change in the meter.

Sure. It was nice to meet you.

Somewhat wide-eyed and with my culturally conditioned damsel in distress instincts switching on, I walk away thinking about how little I really know about living in a city.

Boxcar Jim wasn't actually dirty or rude or threatening, as city people often characterize the less fortunate. He was kinda cool.

Did he "take advantage" of me by asking for my spare change after helping me? No more than the friendly stranger as the service counter earns their wage by helping you.

It all makes me wonder whether I could live in a city. Maybe I like to keep my eyes wide.

Art, Awe, and Adventure

Art, Awe, and Adventure: apparently my top three values according to one of those sappy self-reflection exercises I completed at professional development training a few days ago.

Well, sounds pretty accurate.

In that spirit, here are a few (hopefully) Artistic photos that I took of the Awe-inspiring forest which is my backyard here on my Adventure in Vermont.

What if we ascend the fallen trees? The forest grows anew.

I'd Be Outside, If I Could

Our attempts to stay warm involve electric heat, two fires, and quilts covering all the windows.

That's because it got to 14 degrees below zero last night, people. Negative 14!

Alright, so it's not the worst temperature I've ever lived through, but it is really cold for Vermont.

A house with two-story floor-to-ceiling picture windows is not built for this kind of cold.

I'm gonna freeze my toes off.

I also wish it wasn't so damn cold because when the weather is a balmy 35, the winter sports rock, as evidenced by the following pictures.

Don't I make a picturesque postcard with a hockey goal and a
five-year-old on a snowmobile zooming through the background?

Yours truly went ice skating on a genuine frozen pond.

It's right out of a holiday movie. Including all of the lumps, bumps, and face-plants.

I was told that the neighbors had fun watching me and reminiscing about when they used to be young enough to skate the pond in the winter.

Or watching me face-plant.

Either or.

Slightly closer up!

Once I activated some muscle memory and could manage to call myself a decent skater, I took my little housemate around the pond.

 Later, there was hiking deep into the national forest and across frozen swamps.

I couldn't resist throwing in a little G.

But for this weekend, I'm housebound by the bad weather.

Now there's nothing to do but hunker down and prepare for the impending ice storm.

This includes hauling fire wood, hoping the power doesn't go out, baking cookies, writing letters, and dancing around the living room like a goofball.

A pretty typical couple of days, when all is said and done.

Christmas, Caffeine, and Minnesota Public Radio

A story of sweet, sweet Christmas gift mockery

and why I turned the radio up too loud.

I'll admit that my family back home has never been big on decorating for Christmas, but my Vermont family takes holiday decorating to an entirely different level. One day a few weeks ago literal boxes of Christmas goods were unpacked and festooned about. They even switched out every dish in the house to something Christmas-themed. Plates, mugs, bowls. All of it.

Well, I guess I was spared the silverware. They used to change that, too, but find it too be too much of a hassle.

The sudden upsetting of what had finally become familiar and part of a comforting routine was too much for me. Panicked by the foreign tradition, I asked, "Can I at least keep my favorite coffee mug out?!?" I don't think it too much of a luxury to want comfort in my morning cup of coffee.

Yet the reply was a ribbing, "No! It's not Christmas themed!"

Woefully and grumpily, Christmas came between me and my caffeine.

However, a joyous thing happened on Christmas morning. I was gifted by my Vermont family a giant, obnoxiously-colored mug of my very own, just like the favorite they had insisted I put away.

And I made this face.

The Christmas dishes are still in the cupboards, but I can parade around the house drinking my coffee out of my not-even-remotely-holiday-themed mug saying, "Hah! You can't force me to put it away! It was my CHRISTMAS gift!"

Oh to be properly caffeinated!

But that's not even the end of the story.

As I listened to the Current from Minnesota Public Radio today at work, as I often do, they asked listeners to send in stores of the best/worst Christmas gifts they received this year.

As the story of my not-Christmas mug was recited on MPR, I cranked the volume and made my co-workers listen. HEY, I WAS ON THE RADIO, GUYS.

But that's not even the end of the story.

No, I used part of my work day today talking to a DJ who was filling in for the usual host because HEY, IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, GUYS. The man who picked and read my story to all of the listeners turning in at 2:30 EST today lived and worked for four years in Manchester, Vermont, 20 minutes away from my office. We'd been to the same bars, coffee shops, and bookstore. I had even conversed with his ex about lingerie in the underwear shop that she owns.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

Farm Alarm

I recently started reading Barbara Kingsolver's influential book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" which talks about her family's experiment to live one year on only locally-sourced, organic foods. It was published in 2007, so I'm a bit late to the book party; it hasn't been a shocking eye-opener for me. I already know the good majority of what she's written.

That being said, this is the most depressing book I have ever read. Not in the "I am emotionally gripped and brought to tears" way, but in the "it feels as if there is no hope left for our world" way.

None of us like to face the truths that we find unpleasant, even if they're ones that we already knew. I like to live my everyday life and forget that food and farm issues exist. You can't worry every second of the day or you'd go crazy.

But damn you, Barbara, they do exist.

Here's what I've been reminded of up to page 118:

There are people who don't realize that food either comes out of the soil or from an animal.

Farm subsidies cause an excess in corn and soybeans, which are then either processed into sugars and fats which are added to our diet or dumped overseas, causing developing agricultural markets to crash and farms to fail.

Genetically modified organisms.

We use over twice as many calories to make and ship the food we eat when compared to how many calories the food provides us.

One can make the argument that our markets for seeds (and therefore the crops they produce) are literally monopolies. Monsanto supplies 90% of all soybean seeds and 80% of all corn seeds.

Marketers literally sit in strategy meetings, planning ways to put more processed sugar and fat in our diets and make us like it.

Genetic diversity in the world's domesticated food seed supply is declining so greatly, many scientists worry that we could not recover our food security if a major natural disaster occurred.

We don't care about taste. We only care about our food shipping well so that it looks good when it's sitting on the grocery shelf.

We give up our health and the future of our planet so that we can "economize" on food and buy unnecessary, luxury items instead.

And that's just what I could stand remembering in the few minutes I've been typing.

If it sounds a bit alarmist to you, good! I'm ringing the alarm bell for myself.

Who's going to wake us up?

We're the richest nation on earth, yet we have some of the worst food habits. You'd think we'd spend some of our enormous income on the freshest, tastiest food we could get our hands on. You'd think we'd be like greedy children hoarding that stuff that comes out of the ground or off the backs of animals.

But somewhere along the line we got used to exactly three food groups: fat, sugar, and salt. Maybe our animal nature is a bit to blame, but why do so many think these are the only three tastes worth tasting? Or the only three tastes that exist, for that matter?

Damn you, Barbara, now you've made me rant.

But it's true. We've got our priorities all mixed around.

If you don't believe me, go read the book for yourself. Then we can talk.