So, due to an unfortunate confluence of events (like, for example, an accidental overdraft, a bank holiday and a long line of people who proceeded us in these circumstances), we went without electricity for two days. There is nothing that makes you feel "ghetto" quite like having a major utility (and they all are major, let's face it) turned off. On the second night of being conspicuously "lights-free," our neighbor, a very nice but busy-bodied senior citizen, came out of his house like a shot the moment John stepped into the back yard after work.
"So," he said, in a voice reminiscent of Grandpa Simpson, "how are things, John?"
"Fine. And you, Ed?"
"All right. How's business?"
"Picking up, thanks."
"Keepin' busy?"
"Yep. Pretty hectic."
Ed still lingering.
"Well, have a good night, Ed."
The first night, after a frantic call to ComEd established that it was not a power shortage that caused our neon peace sign in the front window to stop shining but an oversight on our part, we packed up our necessities for the night and did the only thing feasible to us: we rented a room at the new Trump hotel downtown. Nah. We went to my mommy's condo. This is a woman who I don't think ever has bounced a check, let alone paid a late fee: I distinctly remember her combing through the books at our town's library, searching through the stacks for a book it was claimed she hadn't returned. She found it. The point wasn't that the library had made a mistake: it was that my mother was never, ever late with anything, whether it be a bill or a library book. Lord, how I have rebelled. I think that I am well on my way to financing my own wing at my local library. (It's my little way of doing my part.) (Actually, once my mother was legitimately late for something, but my brother and I were born nine months later.) Given her nature and our past disputes, I have to say that my mother was surprisingly gracious about the whole thing involving her grown-ass daughter and shaggy son-in-law showing up with her grandson in tow and several canvas bags overflowing with pajamas and assorted vegan breakfast items. I think she was grateful for the company.
The next day, John went to pay our bill and was told that our power would not be turned on until the next day, most likely. There were many more people in line in front of us. So we didn't have power again yesterday - which means no lights, no oven, no telephone, no computer - but we decided to tough it out and sleep at home last night. "We'll make it into an adventure," John told me, all Wayne Dyer-style and the poor guy had Nancy Spungen for his audience, hissing and heckling at him. But, still, I had to admit that he was right: it would be an adventure. Hadn't I suggested going on an energy fast a couple of years back in solidarity with an anti-war group? Yes, but then it was my choice, which feels very different. Anyway, we got the flashlights and candles together and we did it. John and our son made dinosaur shadow puppets and a sheet fort for a screen that the cat insisted on attacking, and I read my beloved Flannery O'Connor by flashlight. I had to grudgingly admit that I enjoyed the break. It felt very 19th century and lovely, which was how we presented it to our son, which really is much more age-appropriate then "Let's Pretend To Be A Typical Family in Fallujah!"
This morning when we returned from my son's piano lesson, I saw that the lights were on. Hallelujah! The computer was fired up and all those coveted penis enlargement and bored girls in Russia messages were subsequently crammed into my email box! I could screen my phone calls again! Modernity has returned to us and I am no longer muttering under my breath whenever I see a illuminated house, "Goddamn show offs with all their fancy lights!" The patina of ghetto living is no longer on me but I have to say, I like having lived through a mini energy fast. It has made me very aware of all I take for granted and how wasteful I can be. As I write this, nearly eight o'clock at night, the only light on is the one in the room with me. I'd like to maintain this.
Anyway, with the electricity, I now have a working stove again. (Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can messily kiss my ass!) I have to say, this is a good recipe. Make it and appreciate all the blessings in your life. It's kind of like massaman curry but without curry as I am fresh out and I had to improvise with what we had left after the refrigerator had been turned off for two days.
Electricity Stew*
3 small to medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 Tbsp melted coconut oil or olive oil
3 tsps cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsps tamari or soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 400. In a parchment paper-lined rectangular pan, mix the sweet potatoes and the other ingredients. Roast for twenty minutes or so, stirring midway.
Meanwhile, puree in a blender for about a minute until fully integrated:
1 14 oz. can 'lite' coconut milk**
2 Tbsps smooth peanut butter
2 Tbsps pizza sauce (sounds like a gross combination, but trust me on this. The Muir Glen pizza sauce is particularly good)
In a large sauté pan on medium high heat, melt:
1 Tbsp coconut oil or olive oil or light sesame oil
To this add:
1 diced red bell pepper
3 or more cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp tamari
Oh, yummy. Stir this up for about five minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and the sauce from the blender. Add to this:
1 15 oz. can or three cups cooked garbanzo beans
Cook this together until it is at a low boil, then lower the temperature and cook for about three minutes. Stir frequently with a spatula to keep the sweet potatoes from sticking. Season again with cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Serve over rice or rice noodles.
Even a confirmed sweet potato loather like my son ate this happily.
Nice additions/substitutions: this needs something green, like defrosted petite peas around the time of adding the garbanzos, and you can leave those behind if you wish. Steamed broccoli florets would be nice, too. Toasted, coarsely chopped cashews to sprinkle on top at the end! Tamarind paste instead of pizza sauce. Lemon grass and/or lemon balm at the end. Sliced jalapeno peppers to dress it up at the table. Curry powder in the blender with the sauce. Sriracha sauce for the grown-ups at the table, most def!
*It is really annoying when people are all like, "Oh, I don't know the exact measurements because I'm like a improvisational jazz artist just throwing things into a pot," but I have to say that these are approximate measurements. Yes, because I am like an improvisational jazz artist...
**I know foodies are all like, "Lite coconut milk! How tacky and bourgeois!" But the thing is that I am not a foodie but a food lover, and the sauce was rich enough with the peanut butter.
Enjoy and shalom, everyone!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Halloween, Vegan Style...
So we had our annual Chicago Vegan Family Network (CVFN) Halloween party on Saturday and it was the typical bacchanalian affair we've come to expect, like, if we had rafters, the children would've been totally hanging from them. Instead, rafter-less, the children - there were twenty-five, plus all the parents and an odd honorary uncle and grandmother - were running up and down the stairs, running outside to play, grabbing the cat and running with her, running up to the food table and grabbing yet another cupcake. Everything seemed to involve running in their various Halloween ensembles, princess hats and magic wands and hockey sticks akimbo. John and I have come to expect the CVFN Halloween potluck to be a major event in our year given the preparation involved, which includes cleaning, cooking and baking, craft-making, goody bag construction and assembly, and every year, at around ten in the evening immediately following the party, we are faced with the aftermath (including but not limited to: plates, bowls and cups on every available surface; sticky substances of unknown origin on the floor; a melange of crushed crumbs like New Year's Eve confetti; a collapsed bed upstairs; assorted left-behinds - hats, accessories, toys) and every year, somehow, we are grateful to have done it. I am willing to accept that this is proof positive that we are deranged, hoping that if I ever need to use the insanity defense - which, really, I hope my life is not on that particular trajectory - but at the very least, I can point to our continued enjoyment of an event that threatens to destroy our home. But you would love it too, unless you happen to be a cranky Republican hunter. In which case, like I really care what you think.
A little background might be useful here. My friend Lisa and I started CVFN four years ago - this was our fourth anniversary, actually - to create a community of vegan peers for our children. At the time, my son was two and Lisa had three- and one-year-old boys. Our mutual friend, a fellow who goes by an adopted name I will not mention here and the odd honorary uncle I mentioned above, connected us. At first, before we met or spoke, we were a little wary of one another because this mutual friend keeps some rather colorful company. Let's just say that he is essentially homeless (by choice), has a long, white beard (some might say scraggly) and is inclined to wearing multiple layers of clothing at a time regardless of temperature. He is also among the best groomed of his social circle, positively buttoned-down in comparison. When he told me about this vegan mother in Evanston he wanted me to meet, I was pretty much expecting a Dumpster-diving, VW-living, hanging-for-a-bit-before-we-leave-for-the-Phish-tour kind of person, which, while perfectly lovely for another time in my life, was not exactly what I was seeking at this particular time. Lisa, apparently, was expecting the same person with the same sort of feeling of dread with me, so we were both pleasantly surprised to find that neither was shilling 'shrooms or bootlegged cassettes from the show in '93 out of our cars. Whew!
Anyway, once we were mutually assured that neither was subsidizing the patchouli incense industry nearly single-handedly, we determined that, yes, we would very much like to start a local vegan family network, and, thus, the Chicago Vegan Family Network was born. We started with five families the first month and each month or two it seems to get a little bigger. Now we have, I think, forty families on our list, but it's generally ten to twelve families each month at our gatherings. Things slow down in the summer months with traveling and busyness but pick up again in October. It is such a joy for me to look around the room each month and see this robust and diverse group of people. The children, too, get along spectacularly well. In our four years, I do not recall a single fight. That's almost stretching the bounds of reality when you get that many children together.
Anyway, back to the party. We always start out trying to be organized, trying to pace ourselves well by starting a week early with preparations, but we always wind up windmilling our arms around like some jacked-up cartoon characters in a desperate attempt to complete everything by five o'clock, when the first guests begin to arrive. Saturday, I was making peanut butter cups (yeah, they were amazing) in the kitchen when I stepped on a splinter - barefoot in the kitchen, just as God intended - and I called John over to get the damn shard out. I didn't even have time to stop for three seconds. So I lifted my foot, rinsed it in the sink and I did not skip a beat in my chocolate making while John got the splinter out. Later, John was cleaning our son's room with him, in other words, shoveling piles of assorted dinosaur bones and game pieces into sundry boxes, when, as he was putting away a puzzle, about ten more wooden puzzles went crashing on his head. Again, without skipping a beat in my duties, I laughed, correctly guessing at what occurred and moved on, dipping pretzels in chocolate. This is our life when the annual Halloween party is upon us. It doesn't matter how early I start with getting things done as there is just that much to do. If I have time left over, I'm going to find something else to do (more cookies? Paper bats? Skeleton rock skulls?) to make our party that much cooler. And, yes, I already admitted that I am crazy.
I think that I am partially motivated to overcompensate because of the perception that vegan parents are causing our children to miss out. My child deprived? Hell, no. I am going to make frosted pumpkin and bat cookies because that's what little omni kids eat this time of year. I am also going to raise them that and throw in some chocolate covered pretzel rods (magic wands) and cupcakes with gummy worms. Yes, I found vegan gummy worms because, you know, the lack of them creates a gaping hole in the vegan diet. So they exist now, perhaps this is their inaugural year, and our kids got to have them at our Halloween party. So nya nya nya, omni haters: anything you can do, we can do better! (I do see how crazy this is, really, and maybe some day I'll be content just to know in my heart that vegan children are not deprived, but for now I am inspired to prove it to the world. Is that so bad? They get feted once in a while? Believe me, my son goes back to his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like every other kid come Monday.)
So it was an orgy of vegan celebration and conviviality. We are tired but thankful and gratified. Halloween was celebrated, vegan-style.
Shalom, everyone.
A little background might be useful here. My friend Lisa and I started CVFN four years ago - this was our fourth anniversary, actually - to create a community of vegan peers for our children. At the time, my son was two and Lisa had three- and one-year-old boys. Our mutual friend, a fellow who goes by an adopted name I will not mention here and the odd honorary uncle I mentioned above, connected us. At first, before we met or spoke, we were a little wary of one another because this mutual friend keeps some rather colorful company. Let's just say that he is essentially homeless (by choice), has a long, white beard (some might say scraggly) and is inclined to wearing multiple layers of clothing at a time regardless of temperature. He is also among the best groomed of his social circle, positively buttoned-down in comparison. When he told me about this vegan mother in Evanston he wanted me to meet, I was pretty much expecting a Dumpster-diving, VW-living, hanging-for-a-bit-before-we-leave-for-the-Phish-tour kind of person, which, while perfectly lovely for another time in my life, was not exactly what I was seeking at this particular time. Lisa, apparently, was expecting the same person with the same sort of feeling of dread with me, so we were both pleasantly surprised to find that neither was shilling 'shrooms or bootlegged cassettes from the show in '93 out of our cars. Whew!
Anyway, once we were mutually assured that neither was subsidizing the patchouli incense industry nearly single-handedly, we determined that, yes, we would very much like to start a local vegan family network, and, thus, the Chicago Vegan Family Network was born. We started with five families the first month and each month or two it seems to get a little bigger. Now we have, I think, forty families on our list, but it's generally ten to twelve families each month at our gatherings. Things slow down in the summer months with traveling and busyness but pick up again in October. It is such a joy for me to look around the room each month and see this robust and diverse group of people. The children, too, get along spectacularly well. In our four years, I do not recall a single fight. That's almost stretching the bounds of reality when you get that many children together.
Anyway, back to the party. We always start out trying to be organized, trying to pace ourselves well by starting a week early with preparations, but we always wind up windmilling our arms around like some jacked-up cartoon characters in a desperate attempt to complete everything by five o'clock, when the first guests begin to arrive. Saturday, I was making peanut butter cups (yeah, they were amazing) in the kitchen when I stepped on a splinter - barefoot in the kitchen, just as God intended - and I called John over to get the damn shard out. I didn't even have time to stop for three seconds. So I lifted my foot, rinsed it in the sink and I did not skip a beat in my chocolate making while John got the splinter out. Later, John was cleaning our son's room with him, in other words, shoveling piles of assorted dinosaur bones and game pieces into sundry boxes, when, as he was putting away a puzzle, about ten more wooden puzzles went crashing on his head. Again, without skipping a beat in my duties, I laughed, correctly guessing at what occurred and moved on, dipping pretzels in chocolate. This is our life when the annual Halloween party is upon us. It doesn't matter how early I start with getting things done as there is just that much to do. If I have time left over, I'm going to find something else to do (more cookies? Paper bats? Skeleton rock skulls?) to make our party that much cooler. And, yes, I already admitted that I am crazy.
I think that I am partially motivated to overcompensate because of the perception that vegan parents are causing our children to miss out. My child deprived? Hell, no. I am going to make frosted pumpkin and bat cookies because that's what little omni kids eat this time of year. I am also going to raise them that and throw in some chocolate covered pretzel rods (magic wands) and cupcakes with gummy worms. Yes, I found vegan gummy worms because, you know, the lack of them creates a gaping hole in the vegan diet. So they exist now, perhaps this is their inaugural year, and our kids got to have them at our Halloween party. So nya nya nya, omni haters: anything you can do, we can do better! (I do see how crazy this is, really, and maybe some day I'll be content just to know in my heart that vegan children are not deprived, but for now I am inspired to prove it to the world. Is that so bad? They get feted once in a while? Believe me, my son goes back to his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like every other kid come Monday.)
So it was an orgy of vegan celebration and conviviality. We are tired but thankful and gratified. Halloween was celebrated, vegan-style.
Shalom, everyone.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Tired...
I fully have intended to post more but life has been kind of kicking my ass lately, mostly in a good way, like the sort of workout that leaves you feeling sore but kind of tougher than you thought you were. I've had a big assignment, one that required a lot of research of a rather depressing nature, and that was finally turned in Friday, so, while I imagine I'll be getting a bunch of final edits to finish off, the bulk of the piece is done. The past two-and-a-half weeks, though, have meant squeezing as much work as possible into the approximately 2.5 hours my son is in kindergarten and then using my predisposition to insomnia to my advantage by waking up at midnight and writing until around 5 a.m. Needless to say, I've been kind of loopy lately and I think that I've established myself as the Mother Who Occasionally Hallucinates
among my fellow kindergarten mothers. Everyone needs a role, so I guess I'll take that one. Go, me!
So, given my scattered mind, how about some random thoughts until I'm able to put together a cogent sentence? You say go for it? I think I shall.
1. I love Joe Biden's smile. I don't really have much thought about him other than a sort inclination to dislike him for being such a Washington insider and for supporting the invasion originally. But his smile is truly Cheshire Cat-like which I appreciate. Anyway, I'm certain that he could have mopped the floor with Ms. Palin but refrained because one doesn't know how that would be received by the American public. It could have instigated a big wave of stupid sympathy toward her, which, really, she doesn't deserve.
2. In talking with John, I think I fleshed out part of why my dislike of Ms. Palin is so visceral. In addition to that whole anti-evolution/anti-choice thing, I mean. She reminds me of every passive-aggressively rude person who's ever questioned me about being vegan. Like, I can just imagine her sitting across the table from me (truly, heaven forbid such an arrangement) and saying in her bizarrely Fargo-meets-The-Church-Lady sort of way, "You're vegan? Well, isn't that special. I actually think that people matter more than chickens and cows. But, hey, more power to ya!"
3. Her distinctly inappropriate winking and weirdly plastered on smile fill me with a sort of wobbliness which makes me consider that she may be my personal kryptonite.
4. My six-year-old said something really cute the first night of the debate between Obama and McCain. I was explaining to him what a debate was and how we were hoping and expecting that Obama would win. "I am too," he said. "Why?" "'Cause I've been hearing a lot of good things about him lately."
5. Garbanzo beans probably make it into five or more of my meals a week. Just so you know.
I'll return when I have something worthwhile to share.
Shalom, everyone.
among my fellow kindergarten mothers. Everyone needs a role, so I guess I'll take that one. Go, me!
So, given my scattered mind, how about some random thoughts until I'm able to put together a cogent sentence? You say go for it? I think I shall.
1. I love Joe Biden's smile. I don't really have much thought about him other than a sort inclination to dislike him for being such a Washington insider and for supporting the invasion originally. But his smile is truly Cheshire Cat-like which I appreciate. Anyway, I'm certain that he could have mopped the floor with Ms. Palin but refrained because one doesn't know how that would be received by the American public. It could have instigated a big wave of stupid sympathy toward her, which, really, she doesn't deserve.
2. In talking with John, I think I fleshed out part of why my dislike of Ms. Palin is so visceral. In addition to that whole anti-evolution/anti-choice thing, I mean. She reminds me of every passive-aggressively rude person who's ever questioned me about being vegan. Like, I can just imagine her sitting across the table from me (truly, heaven forbid such an arrangement) and saying in her bizarrely Fargo-meets-The-Church-Lady sort of way, "You're vegan? Well, isn't that special. I actually think that people matter more than chickens and cows. But, hey, more power to ya!"
3. Her distinctly inappropriate winking and weirdly plastered on smile fill me with a sort of wobbliness which makes me consider that she may be my personal kryptonite.
4. My six-year-old said something really cute the first night of the debate between Obama and McCain. I was explaining to him what a debate was and how we were hoping and expecting that Obama would win. "I am too," he said. "Why?" "'Cause I've been hearing a lot of good things about him lately."
5. Garbanzo beans probably make it into five or more of my meals a week. Just so you know.
I'll return when I have something worthwhile to share.
Shalom, everyone.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Two good men, now dead...
When I read online that David Foster Wallace committed suicide a few weeks back, I was heartbroken. A brilliant essayist and novelist, DFW managed to crystallize his thoughts in such interesting, dynamic ways. I'm generally not a fan of post-modernist fiction as I think I just like a classic, well-told, muscular story and the PoMo insistence on thick slabs of irony to go with every situation is distancing, indulgent and tiresome to me. Not so with DFW, considered a leader of the PoMo school, who managed to be both brilliant and engaged, not sneering in his academic ivory tower at the rest of us plebeian sloths. He never tried to mask his genius in his work, nor did he perform unnecessary conceptual gymnastics to impress us with his finesse: he was able to, in that way that all great artists are able to, channel God or his higher power or his greatest self, and plug into that in a way that leaves most of us mere mortals stammering and stunned. He did all this while wearing a bandanna and looking, for all intents and purposes, like he was ready to take a hackysack break at the Phish show. Apparently bandanna-wearing, hyper-talented artists also can suffer from debilitating depression and sometimes it doesn't matter if you've won major awards and are at the pinnacle of your field: you can not go on for one minute longer. At some point on September 12, David Foster Wallace ran out of minutes. Another great mind lost, and we are stuck here with Sarah Palin and her notion that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. I hope David's having a good laugh at this. [I feel like it's necessary to say that Ms. Palin's debate with Senator Biden will be the final nail in their spiraling-out-of-control coffin. G'bye, Sarah!]
Second, I was saddened when I heard of Paul Newman's passing, but it certainly wasn't a shock to my system. He was in his eighties, generally when people can expire without raising a lot of eyebrows, and my mother gets enough of those gossip magazines - not that I read such trash... okay, if it's open to a page, I might grab a furtive glimpse - that I had seen assertions that he had cancer. It was still sad, though, to note the end of someone who was so enriched by giving. I think he understood that his chiseled jaw, pout and piercingly blue eyes were simply happy accidents of DNA, the way his mother and his father's code melded together in his form. It was nothing to take credit for, nothing to be overly proud to possess. It simply was. What he could do, though, with whatever doors opened for him because of his eyes and his smile and his style, was give to others and that he did, to the tune of more than 25o,ooo,ooo, at last count. I am not in general big into celebrity worship - in fact, it disgusts me - because I have been active long enough to know there are so many good people who work tirelessly to build a better world. Paul Newman, though, stands out as the genuine article.
In a world of inane celebrities and a cynical culture that aspires to reach the lowest common denominator, I am going to miss these two.
Shalom, everyone.
PS - Happy Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to all. May 5769 (in the Jewish calendar) bring us what so many people have been asking for: no more Republicans in the White House for at least another eight years.
Second, I was saddened when I heard of Paul Newman's passing, but it certainly wasn't a shock to my system. He was in his eighties, generally when people can expire without raising a lot of eyebrows, and my mother gets enough of those gossip magazines - not that I read such trash... okay, if it's open to a page, I might grab a furtive glimpse - that I had seen assertions that he had cancer. It was still sad, though, to note the end of someone who was so enriched by giving. I think he understood that his chiseled jaw, pout and piercingly blue eyes were simply happy accidents of DNA, the way his mother and his father's code melded together in his form. It was nothing to take credit for, nothing to be overly proud to possess. It simply was. What he could do, though, with whatever doors opened for him because of his eyes and his smile and his style, was give to others and that he did, to the tune of more than 25o,ooo,ooo, at last count. I am not in general big into celebrity worship - in fact, it disgusts me - because I have been active long enough to know there are so many good people who work tirelessly to build a better world. Paul Newman, though, stands out as the genuine article.
In a world of inane celebrities and a cynical culture that aspires to reach the lowest common denominator, I am going to miss these two.
Shalom, everyone.
PS - Happy Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to all. May 5769 (in the Jewish calendar) bring us what so many people have been asking for: no more Republicans in the White House for at least another eight years.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tumbleweed rolls past...
Things are quiet around these parts (spoken with a Gunsmoke-y accent, please) because I am busy writing an article with a fast approaching deadline. I'll get back to the agitated vegan, feminist grindstone as soon as possible.
Shalom, everyone.
Shalom, everyone.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Weekends are for lovers...
I love the weekend. It took me about twenty-five years to love Sundays, but at some point, about the point when I realized that Sunday did not necessarily mean an angry drunk bullying and bellowing and generally making my stomach hurt, I lightened up and began to enjoy it, too. Now Sunday has earned its rightful place cushioned up next to Saturday as 'the weekend', not as a day to test that my survival instincts are operating at peak performance, and so I have two full days of pleasantness, generally. And Friday nights will always feel full of promise to me, I think, like the way they did in college, as my friends and I planned our exploits (shop! parties! bars! shop! parties! bars!) and were seldom disappointed.
These days, I loathe shopping, I can't remember the last time I was in a bar, and parties are rare. My weekends are usually comprised, in the warm months, of running around like the proverbial kid at the candy store, sampling madly, dipping my hands into the bins. I have a quaintly low-tech (actually it's more like no-tech) date book that I carry in my bag and have filled with notes. Garfield Park Conservatory Country Fair, 10:00 - 4:00. Free Day at Field Museum. Renegade Craft Fair. I do not discriminate or use common sense judgment when I'm jotting these down as many conflict and are not convenient to one another: I simply want to record them as possibilities and prioritize them when the time is right. Sorting out our weekend days often goes something like this,
Me: So there's an art fair in Lakeview Saturday.
John: I also want to see Mucca Pazza. Remember?
Me: They're playing for free next weekend at the Wabash thingy.
John: Don't we have the vegan family pic-
Me: They play early, like 2:00. I don't know - I wrote it down. Anyway, it's early. We can do both.
John: Cool. So we can do that then.
Me: Yeah. But I'm not sure about the Lakeview thing. Might be lame. I also want to take [our son] to Wicker Park because he's been talking about the playground there.
John: Well, we can do that and just hop on the Blue Line and transfer downtown.
Me: I know, but there's also this free festival on Chicago so that's close to Wicker Park and I wanted to stop at Quimby's anyway.
John: So why don't we just do that?
Me: We should. What if the Lakeview thing isn't lame, though?
Weekends in Chicago in the warm months try their darnedest to make up for the harsh reality that awaits us in January. They're so damn cheerful, these bright yellow smiley faces of warm days, and I take as much in as possible, basking in the radiance like I can store it for that brutal, gray Saturday when the sooty snow is up to my knee and we can't get out of the garage without a half-hour of shoveling. On those days, you may as well stay home and try to organize your basement, make a book with your son, dream about palm trees. When autumn folds into winter and then spring, I am generally more productive and I embrace that productivity fully when the time is right. I have piles of writing projects to dive into and that feels right when the snow is pressing in on me.
For now, though, it is warm so I am on the move. It's closing in on us, though.
Shalom, everyone.
These days, I loathe shopping, I can't remember the last time I was in a bar, and parties are rare. My weekends are usually comprised, in the warm months, of running around like the proverbial kid at the candy store, sampling madly, dipping my hands into the bins. I have a quaintly low-tech (actually it's more like no-tech) date book that I carry in my bag and have filled with notes. Garfield Park Conservatory Country Fair, 10:00 - 4:00. Free Day at Field Museum. Renegade Craft Fair. I do not discriminate or use common sense judgment when I'm jotting these down as many conflict and are not convenient to one another: I simply want to record them as possibilities and prioritize them when the time is right. Sorting out our weekend days often goes something like this,
Me: So there's an art fair in Lakeview Saturday.
John: I also want to see Mucca Pazza. Remember?
Me: They're playing for free next weekend at the Wabash thingy.
John: Don't we have the vegan family pic-
Me: They play early, like 2:00. I don't know - I wrote it down. Anyway, it's early. We can do both.
John: Cool. So we can do that then.
Me: Yeah. But I'm not sure about the Lakeview thing. Might be lame. I also want to take [our son] to Wicker Park because he's been talking about the playground there.
John: Well, we can do that and just hop on the Blue Line and transfer downtown.
Me: I know, but there's also this free festival on Chicago so that's close to Wicker Park and I wanted to stop at Quimby's anyway.
John: So why don't we just do that?
Me: We should. What if the Lakeview thing isn't lame, though?
Weekends in Chicago in the warm months try their darnedest to make up for the harsh reality that awaits us in January. They're so damn cheerful, these bright yellow smiley faces of warm days, and I take as much in as possible, basking in the radiance like I can store it for that brutal, gray Saturday when the sooty snow is up to my knee and we can't get out of the garage without a half-hour of shoveling. On those days, you may as well stay home and try to organize your basement, make a book with your son, dream about palm trees. When autumn folds into winter and then spring, I am generally more productive and I embrace that productivity fully when the time is right. I have piles of writing projects to dive into and that feels right when the snow is pressing in on me.
For now, though, it is warm so I am on the move. It's closing in on us, though.
Shalom, everyone.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The politics of inevitability...
Something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is how on a personal and collective scale we become complicit in our own undoing. There have been messages going back and forth with the fantastic group of progressive mothers I am so fortunate to be a part of, and since the Sarah Palin Thing (last time I'll refer to her by name in this post), I've sensed not only a growing despair, but almost a forfeiture of this election, as though it were a forgone conclusion that once again, the bad guys are going to win. Well, certainly the Roves and Republican evildoers have worked very tirelessly to undermine our confidence in the right to a fair and legal election, and it is understandable that given the last eight years - one shock to our system after the next with these fiends - we are a little shaky, as though we've got some national form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'm not even being flippant when I say this.
As I wrote to my friends, though, I had to think about that Cubs game in 2003. (I am just about the last person to reference sports in any capacity, so this alone is noteworthy.) You know the one where the fan reached over and seemingly snatched the ball out of that outfielder's glove, effectively causing two runs? I wasn't watching it at the time, but my friends were over and I could hear them scream and groan and shriek. I have seen The Incident a few times since on replay. What I saw was a team that was ahead, in both the series and the game, crumble upon itself, almost literally. At the moment that the (idiot) fan reached over and grabbed the ball, there seemed to be a deathly silence that fell over Wrigley Field, and, five outs away from the World Series, within seconds, the players and their fans all bought into the so-called curse of the Cubs, that they were doomed to disappoint eternally. It was a potent and dramatic display of the self-fulfilling prophesy carried out on the world stage, and if it weren't so depressing, it would be fascinating. After that moment, the Marlins (thank you, Wikipedia!) scored run after run, the golden, overachieving child to the Cub's underachieving child, and the Chicago team, having bought so completely into the myth of their inevitable failure, may as well have been cardboard cutouts there on the field. They were already gone.
My analogy is this: we must not complicit in helping the far-right build their myth of inevitability. They are as dependent on us - progressive, smart, compassionate people - buying into it and playing that role as they depend on anything. In fact, we are doing their work for them, the work of crooks and thieves and misogynists, when we wring our hands and believe in their supposed power. What I am saying here is that we absolutely must be steadfast in bringing people away from the McCain camp through outreach and phone calls and going door-to-door, but we must also be disciplined and conscious of our thought patterns. We need to focus on what we are moving toward, not what want to move away from: we need to destroy that paradigm that is so tempting among the abused. The first group of people whose minds we need to change is our own. Not buying into the Republican inevitability myth and refusing the role of mistreated (but good-hearted) loser is as essential to winning as anything. So let's be disciplined and generous with ourselves and leave that old, worthless dynamic in the dust. It cannot exist itself without our participation. The Republicans will be frothing at the mouth for us to play the role they've assigned us. It'll be a delight to disappoint them.
Shalom, everyone
As I wrote to my friends, though, I had to think about that Cubs game in 2003. (I am just about the last person to reference sports in any capacity, so this alone is noteworthy.) You know the one where the fan reached over and seemingly snatched the ball out of that outfielder's glove, effectively causing two runs? I wasn't watching it at the time, but my friends were over and I could hear them scream and groan and shriek. I have seen The Incident a few times since on replay. What I saw was a team that was ahead, in both the series and the game, crumble upon itself, almost literally. At the moment that the (idiot) fan reached over and grabbed the ball, there seemed to be a deathly silence that fell over Wrigley Field, and, five outs away from the World Series, within seconds, the players and their fans all bought into the so-called curse of the Cubs, that they were doomed to disappoint eternally. It was a potent and dramatic display of the self-fulfilling prophesy carried out on the world stage, and if it weren't so depressing, it would be fascinating. After that moment, the Marlins (thank you, Wikipedia!) scored run after run, the golden, overachieving child to the Cub's underachieving child, and the Chicago team, having bought so completely into the myth of their inevitable failure, may as well have been cardboard cutouts there on the field. They were already gone.
My analogy is this: we must not complicit in helping the far-right build their myth of inevitability. They are as dependent on us - progressive, smart, compassionate people - buying into it and playing that role as they depend on anything. In fact, we are doing their work for them, the work of crooks and thieves and misogynists, when we wring our hands and believe in their supposed power. What I am saying here is that we absolutely must be steadfast in bringing people away from the McCain camp through outreach and phone calls and going door-to-door, but we must also be disciplined and conscious of our thought patterns. We need to focus on what we are moving toward, not what want to move away from: we need to destroy that paradigm that is so tempting among the abused. The first group of people whose minds we need to change is our own. Not buying into the Republican inevitability myth and refusing the role of mistreated (but good-hearted) loser is as essential to winning as anything. So let's be disciplined and generous with ourselves and leave that old, worthless dynamic in the dust. It cannot exist itself without our participation. The Republicans will be frothing at the mouth for us to play the role they've assigned us. It'll be a delight to disappoint them.
Shalom, everyone
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