I see that the last post I made on this site was just over a year ago. Wow. It's been quite a year, with one kid finishing kindergarten and the other starting high school. We bought a house, we worked hard at our jobs, we planted a garden, grew things, prepared them in our gorgeous kitchen and ate them with friends and family around our table. We loved each other a lot, and somehow made it through all of my husband's travel and time away from us, which is a lot of time away.
Which is why I was so grateful for this past weekend, to have had time together with my family, unstructured time where we didn't have to run around getting everyone to and from work and school. I hope each and every one of you had some of the same!
 The big news today is that I'm making a chicken pot pie for my kids. Here's one of them, to the left of this paragraph. I think now would be a good time to mention that I have never...well, almost never...made a successful pastry crust. Pate sucree, sure, but an honest to goodness pie crust? If the bag full of "crust" dust in my refridgerator is any indication, this is a mountain I have yet to climb.
Now might also be a good time to mention that Noah, the boy in the picture above, the one I refered to as "one of them", as in one of my two children, is going to kindergarten in two weeks. TWO WEEKS. Almost 6 years ago my husband and I had a weak moment and today - eight jobs, two houses, dozens of Chez Shelton's and one dog later - Noah is going to kindergarten. Hardly seems possible.
I can't let this gorgeous boy down with a failed pie crust. Martha? Ina? Jamie? Nigella? Susanne? Anybody out there who can help?
Think of the children.
I am living this week for Thursday and Friday, when I will have a much anticipated two days off from work. Ahhhh...I can almost feel my shoulders relaxing. Almost.
Chez Shelton was up and running again this weekend, where the star of the show (besides an adorable 4-month-old Claire) was sushi grade tuna from the fish market in downtown LA. Holy mother of god, that tuna was unbelievable. Deep red, thick and flawless, it was almost criminal to touch any part of its flesh with heat. We split the difference - we set aside some for the grill, and while the rest of the meal was prepared ate the remainder of this incredible tuna raw as god intended.
I also tried a new cake - an olive oil cake with orange peel I had read about in the August issue of Bon Appetit. I used clementines, as I didn't have a need for a whole bag or oranges. Served with whipped vanilla cream, it provided a perfect ending to this summery feast.
With an enormous nod to Jamie Oliver, whose recipies I regularly use as a jumping off point, here is the menu from our Saturday Summer's Night Feast:
Grilled Tuna with Tomato Nectarine Salsa
for the tuna
4 tuna steaks
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
for the salsa
1 large tomato or several small/medium tomatoes of different colors, ripe but firmish
1 large nectarine or 2 medium sized ones, also ripe but firmish
6 green onions
juice of 1 lime
3 small red chilis
Blanched, Stir-fried Blue Lake Green Beans with Garlic and Olive Oil
Fresh Corn on the Cob with Butter and Salt
Olive Oil Cake with Clementine Rind and Whipped Vanilla Cream
for the cake
2 large eggs
3/4 c. whole milk
1/2 c. mild-flavored olive oil
rind of 2 clementines
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil and flour a cake round or loaf pan. Combine dry ingredients in a seperate bowl and set aside. Whisk eggs, milk, olive oil and clementine rind in a standing mixer until well blended. Add dry mixture in thirds and mix until completely incorporated.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 60 to 65 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool 30 minutes in the pan, then remove from pan and cool on rack.
for the cream
1 pint heavy or whipping cream
organic sugar to taste
1 t. vanilla (or to taste)
Whip cream, sugar and vanilla in a metal bowl until the mixture holds soft peaks. Serve on top of cake and enjoy.
No pics unfortunately...we were far too busy eating and playing with the kids in the yard. Vivé la summer evening!
For those of you who don't know, I work for the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. Our state's inability to govern responsibly certainly affects us all, but is having a dire effect on our community's most vulnerable members - children growing up in poverty. This recent letter from our CEO, Larry Rosen, saves me the essay I was preparing to write and publish here about these issues. We need to fix this, and fast, or we will fail our community's children.
From: Rosen, Larry
Sent: Fri 7/24/2009 5:18 PM
Subject: YMCA Stuff You May Want to Know, Vol. 74
Sometimes, life sucks.
In a few days, as a direct consequence of our shameful inability as Californians to govern ourselves responsibly over a period decades, your YMCA will begin notifying 774 young children and their impoverished parents that there will be no more YMCA child care for them. In 60 days, $3.6 million in state funded grants for school-age child care will end. Good luck. God bless. Hope you can figure something out.
The cuts will affect 16 of 22 grant-funded child care sites we have been operating for decades in low-income communities. The wreckage will be greatest in the branches least able to take the hit, but, far more importantly, in the lives of families with the fewest resources and the fewest options. The roll call of damage is, with a couple of exceptions, the roll call of our work in urban communities: Inglewood/Centinela Valley YMCA (1 site, 49 kids); Weingart South Los Angeles YMCA (3 sites, 120 kids); Weingart East Los Angeles YMCA (2 sites, 94 kids); Mid Valley YMCA (1 site, 49 kids); East Valley YMCA (1 site, 30 kids); Crenshaw YMCA (6 sites, 335 kids); Montebello YMCA (1 site, 25 kids); Gardena-Carson YMCA (1 site, 60 kids); and the South Pasadena-San Marino YMCA (1 site, 12 kids).
All of these families pay something toward their child's fees in order to qualify for the program. The parents are partners in this, which is why the YMCA agreed to participate in the grant years ago - we tend not to like any grant funded program which limits our ability to involve the parents and share the responsibility. I have to tell you, though, if you could sit through even 10 of the interviews with these parents to determine what they could and should pay, you'd be in tears long before #11 walked in. We tend to demonize poverty and the poor in this country ("these people should accept more responsibility and work harder, just like I did"), but believe me, it ain't that simple. It's all too easy to work very hard and still be very poor in America. Minimum wage is going up this month to $7.70/hour: that means that the good people we need and rely upon to wash our dishes, clean our houses, carry our boxes and do a million other menial chores we'd rather not touch with a ten foot pole will be earning $16,000 a year. The federal poverty line for a family of 4 in 2009 is $22,050.
Close your eyes for a moment and try to picture how you'd feed, clothe and house your family on that without help from somewhere. Heck, try to imagine doing that on twice that much without having to live in a neighborhood where your kids could get caught in a crossfire going to and from school or inducted into a gang by the time they were 11.
I know, I know: lots of us came from poor backgrounds and we did ok, didn't we? All without any luck or any help, either, right? Yeah, right.
My grandparents were poor immigrants who arrived at Ellis with the minimum required $10, no English, no formal education and no job. They were willing to work hard and did. Piece work for pennies a day in the sweatshops in New York's garment district. They endured unimaginable hardship and vicious discrimination, but things turned out ok for them, didn't it? Forget the fact that it wasn't until the third generation, 60 years after they got off the boat, that a member of the family actually graduated from college - the Rosens are an American success story. But what do we really learn from this? That if the Rosens can do it, anyone can?
There are millions of such triumphant stories, but there's also a real danger in believing we should promote this level of hardship as an experience everyone should have in order to develop the proper character and sense of responsibility required to call yourself a citizen of the U.S.A. The millions of successes are being overwhelmed, increasingly, by many more millions of failures and a hamster wheel cycle of generational poverty in too many communities, rural and urban.
If a few fail, it's a problem of personal responsibility. If there are more people in poverty who fail than manage to triumph over it, it's a problem of systems, structures and public policy.
What I know as a 40-year YMCA guy and a social worker to a dead-bang certainty is this: children of poor, under-employed, under-educated parents growing up in dangerous neighborhoods and attending over-crowded, poorly equipped schools stand a far better chance of growing up to be just like their parents than they do becoming the poster child for the American experience. Children born into poverty are many times more likely to have been born without proper prenatal care, to be of low birth weight, to be the child of a teenager or a single parent and to begin their pursuit of the American dream without a drop of hope. These kids are far more likely to be spending time in the juvenile justice system than they are to graduate from high school, let alone go to college -- that's a fact and you could look it up.
Unless, of course, they get some help along the way.
Help along the way comes in the form of a YMCA child care center in a poor neighborhood, providing life experiences and opportunity that few of these families can muster on their own. Help is tutoring, a mentor, a relationship with someone from their neighborhood who actually did make it out, learning how to swim, going to camp, belonging to a team with a coach who cares, a safe place to be after school, more support for making tough choices, a chance to have fun without having to duck for cover.
What the YMCA provides in these settings touches tens of thousands of lives every day and makes a huge difference in ways that seem simple and obvious to people of privilege who always had such things, but which are utterly absent in more neighborhoods than you'd like to admit.
In 60 days, we'll be touching 774 fewer of these lives and it breaks my heart.
$3.6 million is not a hole we can fill by re-organizing or appealing to private philanthropy. We might be able to raise $3.6 for one year, but this is a year-in, year-out matter that requires a public partnership. We're working on a reorganization plan that may allow us to keep 100 of these kids with us. We'll save every one we possibly can.
The human face on California's $26 billion failure to make responsible policy is hidden from most of us as we watch our friends in Sacramento try to make lemonade out of a broken system.
Is there anyone out there who believes that overcrowded classrooms, less health insurance, less child care, fewer health clinics, fewer shelters and more desperation won't result in societal problems that will cost us far more over time in the form of more crime, less educated workers and more people living on the streets? What we're doing with the state budget now - and I am one who believes we don't have much choice about what we're doing now - is going to haunt us for a generation and cost us in ways we don't want to pay.
If we don't seize this time to repair the broken way we govern our state, we'll be facing a version of this every year. This isn't a simple question of living within our means (which we have no choice but to do, of course), but the larger question of what a society must do if its citizens are going to have a chance to thrive.
Until we reform the initiative process to eliminate paid signature gatherers and ballot box budgeting, acknowledge the epic failures of term limits, reform and up-date Prop 13, eliminate that ridiculous 2/3 majority for budgeting decisions and align our priorities with the investments required to prevent problems and develop capacity, California will continue to fail its children.
In this light, it's time to share again that brilliant call by the poet Ina Hughs, a columnist and journalist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Ms Hughs wrote a poem about 15 years ago that many consider one of the most touching and inspiring expressions of our duty to children ever written. It hangs in my office and I see it everyday.
I close with it today in the hopes that it will live in your heart.
A Prayer for Children
by Ina J. Hughs
William Morrow & Co., NY c. 1995
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a pair of new sneakers,
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who sleep with the dog and bury the goldfish
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and
for those who don't get a second chance.
for those we smother...
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
Be well,
Larry
Three things I'd like to share on the subject of marriage. The first pissed me off; the second made me laugh with recognition (thank you, Brad, for that!); the third I include in honor of my sister's upcoming (re)marriage.
Enjoy!
1. Sandra Tsing Loh: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/divorce
Blogger's Note: As I mentioned above, this struck me as lazy, casual and self-centered. It really made me mad.
2. It's hot! It's sexy! It's ... marriage!
Am I the only person who actually enjoys being hitched these days?
By Aaron Traister
Blogger's Note: My husband sent me this one yesterday, with the heading, "I thought you'd appreciate this..." I do.
July 15, 2009 | Amid all the bad press marriage has been getting recently --
from Sandra Tsing Loh's admission of adultery and refusal to do the "work"
necessary to keep her marriage together, to Cristina Nehring's dismissal of
boring companionate marriages in favor of rash flings, to the very public
ruin of the marriages of every governor ever elected, to Caitlin Flanagan's
flaccid defense of marriage as something to hang onto for the sake of the
kids -- I'm starting to feel like there is something wrong with me, because
I actually enjoy being married.
My wife and I have been married anywhere from seven to 150 years (I'm not
good with dates). During those years we have moved six times, and each move
was like an exotic gift that happened to be covered in shit. We have each
had multiple jobs, and multiple uniforms with name tags. We've been broke,
we've been well off, we've been broke again. We've bought our first house
together, and it has a giant hole in the kitchen ceiling and sparks come out
of the third-floor outlets if you hold anything metal too close to them. We
have fought, raged, nearly cheated, and been totally out of sync with each
other during chunks of our time together. We've also produced two enormous
redheaded babies who are as terrifying to us as Mothra and Godzilla were to
Japan in the '60s. We have been depressed, we have wanted more, we have
wanted different, we have wanted out. The years since we got married have
been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life.
They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.
When I met my wife she was a tough and self-sufficient 25-year-old bartender
working in lower Manhattan. When she looked in the mirror she saw a
beautiful young woman with a rock-solid personal-trainer sculpted body and a
collection of lingerie that would make Fredrick of Hollywood himself go
cross-eyed.
I was a 22-year-old slow-getter navigating the medium-paced world of
entry-level positions at failing entertainment companies. When I looked in
the mirror I saw someone who looked like a cross between Wallace Shawn and
Koko the sign language gorilla. (Yes, I know Koko is a lady ape, but the
resemblance is uncanny.) I saw someone who hadn't quite gotten comfortable
with the fact that he wasn't 14 anymore, but who had endless amounts of time
and energy for being as selfish as possible and enjoying every possible
instant life had to offer.
The world was our oyster, and we slurped it. We slurped it often. We slurped
it hard.
We had so much fun slurping with each other that we thought we should make a
life of it.
Nowadays when my wife looks in the mirror all she sees are stretch marks and
soft spots. I don't see these things with the clarity or critical eye she
does; if I do notice changes in her I chalk them up to a life full of
laughter, good food and fat babies. In my mind, my wife wears those marks
with as much style and beauty as she wears everything else. In her mind it
is a different story.
When I look in the mirror I see pretty much the same thing I've seen for the
past 17 years: I still see a big hairy monkey smiling back at me and
grunting, and I still feel like I'm 14, even if the energy and time aren't
necessarily there anymore. Sure, I notice the effects of ape pattern
baldness slowly ravaging my once glorious mane, and perhaps I've eaten one
too many bananas and slurped one too many oysters.
But these maladies that my wife and I face when we look in the mirror are
not symptoms of a crappy marriage. They are a symptom of getting older, and
I have a sneaking suspicion that they would not be worn as gracefully if we
were not a part of each other's lives.
And while I have many daydreams regarding me and Tina, the 20-year-old
soccer-playing sophomore who serves me my ice cream and indulges me in my
forced attempts at conversations about her school and career goals, I know
that ship has long since sailed. I had my time with the Tinas of the world.
I married one. I don't want to think about getting hair plugs and a Camaro
in order to keep up with the new batch.
My lack of hot Tina action doesn't eat away at me, nor does it act as some
sort of wedge issue in my life or marriage, because I know a secret.
As hard as marriage can be, it only really sucks if you don't love the
person you're married to. If you don't love the person you're married to all
the other crap seems insurmountable -- the scary large children, the lack of
money, the fantasy sexual partners (who I like to imagine was wearing a
particularly low-cut top today in my honor but, in reality, was not), the
falling-apart house, the weeks where you just don't click, the ridiculous
arguments about nothing, and most important, the fact that you're getting
older and still haven't magically achieved your life goal of becoming
Randall Cunningham or Patti Smith or whatever.
If you love the person you are married to then all the stuff that's your
problem and not actually a problem with the relationship, stays your problem
(for the most part), and you can focus on what's great about marriage.
At 8 p.m. on the 4th of July my wife and I found ourselves with two sleeping
children and an unusual amount of energy for that time of night. We
capitalized on the opportunity by having sex on the couch (we are usually
relegated to quickies in our pantry/coat closet during episodes of "Dora").
We were enjoying this moment of sexual liberation from the tangling
tentacles of the jackets we still haven't put away for the summer when we
realized that the music coming from the TV had changed, and we were suddenly
working in time to a particularly jaunty instrumental rendition of "You're a
Grand Old Flag" (not exactly Marvin Gaye). In my compromised state, the song
crossed with "Stars and Stripes Forever," and I found myself singing that
line about "a duck being somebody's mother." It's hard to overstate the
absurdity of the moment, as I whispered poultry origins from the wrong
patriotic anthem to my incredibly sexy wife during intercourse.
Everyone has laughed so hard their stomach hurt, but I don't know how many
people have had that opportunity while they are inside someone else who is
laughing that hard too. It is sort of like riding on the teacups at
Disneyland during an earthquake. It's an unusual sensation and one that I'm
not quite sure I'd describe as sexy. It certainly shares little in common
with the urgent and dramatic gymnastics of our youthful physical
relationship, but it was fun, it was intimate, it was something that I'm
glad I had the chance to do, and it was something I would only feel
comfortable sharing with my wife of 150 years.
I'm sacrificing our privacy on the altar of public opinion for a simple
reason: We talk about our marriages so seriously and with such reverence; we
talk about our sex or lack thereof in the same way. Maybe we shouldn't.
Maybe we shouldn't treat the institution and its dirty little companion as
some sort of precious Fabergé egg that is either shattered and worthless or
pristine, untouchable and priceless. Maybe it's more like Silly Putty and
the plastic egg it comes in. Sometimes the egg is open, allowing for hours
of stretchy, flexible fun; sometimes the egg is closed and kind of boring,
but as long as the Silly Putty remains inside the egg it's still full of as
much potential as your imagination allows, and the value of the egg is not
diminished no matter how often or vigorously the egg or its contents are
fingered or played with. (And yes, I was staring at a Silly Putty egg on my
dining room table when I came up with that extended metaphor.)
Maybe if we all had a better sense of humor about our relationships, our
sex, and most important, getting older, our marriages wouldn't be in such
crisis. As appealing as doing tequila shots with out-of-work strippers
sounds sometimes, the reality of it (for more than an evening) would
probably not make me any happier than I am curled up on the couch with my
wife drinking watered-down Scotch and watching TiVoed episodes of "General
Hospital."
I'm not arguing that people shouldn't get divorced. I'm all for it. What I'm
sick and tired of is divorced people speaking as though they are oracles
from the future who know how the rest of our unions will turn out. All the
marriage bashing going on out there feels like a way of shedding a certain
amount of personal responsibility. By telling the world the institution is
flawed, or that we've somehow outgrown it, nobody has to own up and admit
that it was their interpretation of it that was screwed up.
3. Marjorie Williams: Reader, I Married
http://books.google.com/books?id=Klibdu0Pk-4C&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=marjorie+williams+reader,+I+married&source=bl&ots=RvPgk8Y3rN&sig=YHNdB81iYFo7T7Nqi4i0vYQFpKY&hl=en&ei=YzhfSrikAojQM9D7sK4C&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
Blogger's Note: Marjorie Williams is one of my favorite writers. This is a terrific essay on the complex process of getting and being married.
What is...enough? How much is it, how big or small? Can it fulfill you? Can it sustain you? Are you losing out if instead of taking a lot, or as much as you possibly can, if you simply, gracefully, take...enough? Are you a sucker?
I think the concept of "enough" is at the heart of sustainability for our planet, our economy, and our communities. When did we decide that it was patriotic to super-size everything? Bigger is better? Really? Doesn't it erode any sense of community if you are always trying to get more than the other guy?
Since when did living The American Dream mean being rich and famous? Why, if we have enough, do we have to make more money, own a bigger house and more cars, and have more disposable stuff than The Jones's do? Doing well used to mean having a roof over your head, having clothes on your back and food on the table. While I enjoy unnecessary luxuries as much as the next girl, I find myself rethinking my consumer habits - not only for larger, greater-good reasons such as the good of society and the good of the planet, but also, more personally, for the good of my own happiness.
Because at the end of the day, I want to feel satisfied with the life I provide for myself and my family. I want to spend more time enjoying the fruits of my labor and less time feeling like they are not enough. I don't want to allow someone else's wealth make me feel like a failure, or that I'm losing out - because it shouldn't. Not everyone has to live in a McMansion, wear Prada or drive a Porsche. It's fine if you do, but it shouldn't be something we define ourselves by. At what point do we simply say, enough?
I'm not suggesting that no one should ever make money, or that we shouldn't try to become homeowners or send our kids to college, or to never try and achieve anything in life. In fact real change for our society will require an incredible amount of work, discipline and sacrifice, and I do believe achievement deserves recognition. I'm suggesting that perhaps we've lost sight of the meaning behind why we try to achieve things in our lives, and that perhaps we have lost perspective with regard to how much we should expect to be compensated for our work. Though executive salaries overall fell by 9% in 2008, they have, over the past decade particularly, risen to unfathomable amounts - double and triple digit millions - while the minimum wage remains in the single digit dollars - $8 an hour. The gap between rich and poor is astonishing. In 1964, the average executive's pay was roughly 24 times the average salary of their employees. Today it ranges anywhere from 275 to 430 times the average, and has increased at more than 10 times the rate of inflation.
Another way of looking at our out-sized expectations is to consider my generation and the generations that came immediately following. We LOVE credit. We expected to graduate college and walk right into $75,000 a year jobs. We expected to be able to live like stockbrokers on a teacher's salary. We expected to be able to live like our parents did after 30 years in the workforce, RIGHT NOW. We forget that they started small, worked hard and saved as much as they could in order to get where they are today...and we forget that it took time. A lot of time. For most of our parents, the concept of "get rich quick" was a scheme, not a birthright.
Prior to the economic collapse, we as a country had drifted into some fairly destructive territory. Fall of the Roman Empire stuff. I think, and not just in some silver-lining, positive outlook kind of way, that what is happening to our economy is calling us to do something difficult, something with which we have become tremendously unaccustomed, but something that at the end of the day will make us stronger for the future - we are being called to DO something. To ACT. We are being asked to sacrifice. To recycle, buy locally and promote ecological sustainability. To drive hybrid vehicles. But besides these socially acceptable "sacrifices", we are also being asked to do something unpopular, unpleasant and uncomfortable - we are being asked to pay more in taxes so that we can better fund our public schools, invest in infrastructure and protect and fortify our people by insuring that their basic needs - education, healthcare and a planet we can continue to live on - are met. Some of us are being asked to pay more than others, it's true. But our communities are only as strong as our poorest, most vulnerable members, and so I for one am happy to pay more so that we can all thrive together.
There is a terrific article in April's Vanity Fair - Rethinking the American Dream. It's worth taking the time to read. Then rethink.
The first week on the job was as expected. Nice people, lots to do, sharp learning curve as I get to know how things work and where to find them. Big expectations. But I am grateful to have found a job in this economy. I do, however, miss being home. I miss my kids, my husband...I miss having a little time to myself. I know these things will all come into balance once again, but for now...I miss them.
My garden seems to have done well this week - more lettuces, peas and herbs peeking their leafy heads out of the dirt. I have completely forgotten what I planted where, so it will be a surprise when they develop beyond their initial 2-leaf offering. I had moderate success with cooking - nothing too fancy - a lasagna here, a risotto there - but the chickens I roasted on Sunday fed us all week, a minor miracle in and of itself.
There is another issue upsetting me at the moment - the number of people blaming the worsening economy on the Obama administration. I have heard everything from Rush Limbaugh hoping his policies will fail to Chicken Little claims that "there is no plan, there is no plan!" even as The Plan, laid out in his defacto State of the Union, is being executed. Guantanamo Bay will close and the official and unofficial directive is that all US interrogations must follow the Army manual, period (read: no torture, no backroom orders). We have a withdrawal strategy and timeline for ending the Iraq war. Congress passed a stimulus package that is already having an impact. The fiscal responsibility summit included big business as well as long-time supporters of healthcare reform. And they guy has been in office a month and a half. This doesn't sound like nothing to me.
Back to my life - the grocery store is calling. So is laundry. Oh, and dishes. And I think my vacuum is feeling neglected. Ah, well...
Okay. The country has a stimulus package and I have a job. Terrific! Now what? With regard to my job, being a family with both parents working again will challenge my quest to reinvent the way our family thinks about and consumes food and resources. It will be tempting to revert back to those lovely, pre-packaged frozen dinners. It will be easy to neglect my garden, forget to compost, go disposable...to seek ease over sustainability. After all, we're just so very busy. And we work hard, so we deserve a break now and then, don't we? Well, all I can say is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
The great silver lining in being laid off for three months has been that I have taught myself that it's possible to do a lot more with less if you're thinking about economy. And surprise, surprise, this approach is better for the environment, which means that my small actions improve the possibility of a sustainable future for the entire planet. Thinking globally and acting locally works. What was born of necessity has, in the end, been a great eye-opener. The challenge will be to find the ease in living more sustainably, and to remain passionate about pursuing this goal in the face of early mornings, soccer tournaments, and an $8 million dollar capital campaign.
With regard to the stimulus package, I will be tracking it very closely, as I am in a huge fight with someone I love about whether or not this was the right thing to do. This person loathes the very idea of this package, and thinks with every fiber of her being that 1) it won't work; and 2) we should let the free market determine the outcome of this "correction". So.
Track it with me at www.recovery.gov.
Good news on the new foods front - apparently, good old Boeuf Bourguingnon was not a total disaster at last night's family dinner food fest. For those of you just joining us (or rather, me, as I don't think I have many - make that any - readers yet), I am on a mission to instill in my children the love of preparing and eating really good food, food that doesn't come out of a box. It's devilishly difficult. And yet I have seen some progress, a slight yielding if you will, to my dogged, almost bullish persistence. For anyone interested in trying this recipie, check out Ina Garten's Barefoot in Paris for a version of this dish that takes half the usual time and is twice as good.
And some good news on the unemployment front - it not only looks like Congress will pass some sort of economic stimulus package, it looks like I may be able to provide my family with an economic stimulus package of my own in the form of a job. In both cases we do not have a signed deal just yet, but the outcome appears hopeful. Fingers crossed for all of us.
I had read something like this back when Miranda was a baby, and so was relieved since I could back up my slacker-approach to the 5-second (or 10-minute) rule with some science. I never was that mom who obsessively washes the binky every time it falls on the floor, but so many people I know ARE that mom (or dad, it's not an exclusively female trait), especially in the beginning. Then everyone gets too tired to keep up the vigilance. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you permission to relax.
From the Old Gray Lady...
HEALTH | January 27, 2009
Personal Health: Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You
By JANE E. BRODY
The hygiene hypothesis suggests that organisms that enter the body along with "dirt" spur the development of a healthy immune system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
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