we're travelling this thanksgiving, which isn't riotous in itself, but we're doing it by bus and rail.
tonight we leave new york by greyhound through cleveland to ashtabula. friday we'll spend the day hanging out with friends and family there and connect with jake. then the three of us will catch a train out of cleveland and down to florida, where erin's folks (and friends) live. we'll be staying with family, who may be in danger of desperately spoiling jake because he's their first grandchild experience ;)
erin's mom, judi, has been incited to try for a mostly local thanksgiving dinner *jumping for joy* with a turkey from a guy they know, and we'll hit the local farmer's markets and stores that sell local produce. i'll be bringing jersey cranberries with us cos i don't think they grow down there.
we'll be renting a car while we're there :( but we did get the smallest available car.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A Day in the Lower Impact Life
sharon started a virtual roll-call of low[er]-impact "a day in the life" articles. kim did one. glenn did one. sarah did one. i'm sure others have done them, too, but i forget who did and who didn't. here's mine! this is from yesterday, thursday, november 8.
i wake up to my cell phone going off at 5:30am. i don't keep an alarm clock plugged in, and i only have to charge my cell phone every other day. i plug in the bedside lamp, click it on, roll over and poke/converse erin awake enough for us to get up. since i'm not showering today, this takes up to a half hour and involves some giggling. we get up, i grab my work clothes and the kitten and the kitten's box and my cell phone and unplug the bedside lamp before heading downstairs. i let the dog out, feed the cats, start the coffee (actually, erin usually does the coffee, which is fair trade, organic and locally roasted in brooklyn), use the bathroom after erin to combine our flush. if there's any water left in the shower bucket from whoever showered last then i pour that into the toilet to flush it instead of pulling the handle. i dress, deodorizing with my lovely crystal deo. back in the kitchen, i toast a couple pieces of bread (this week is whole wheat from a local bakery, but i'd rather if it were homemade) and spread them with either peanut butter (organic, but not local) or yogurt cheese from ronnybrook farms (today was yogurt cheese). a cup of coffee with ronnybrook milk rounds out breakfast. i read whatever is on the table while i eat (we do still get the newspaper). i grab leftovers from the fridge (today i'm having pumpkin black bean chili, leftover parsley potatoes and steamed broccoli), and an apple from the counter and stuff them in my bag. i wash my plate and knife (unless erin uses them for her toast) and rinse out my coffee cup and hang it up. i brush my teeth and head out the door to the bus. it's now 7:00am.
by bus and subway train i travel the 10 miles to work. i like seeing the same people on the bus and train most days. in the summer i was biking to the train station, but i've let that go for now.
8:00am i arrive at work and take the elevator to the 41st floor. i put my lunch in the fridge, turn on my computer, and do a day's work. if i have something that's not paper recyclable, i take it to the common trash can in the kitchen. i use a cloth i keep in my pocket to dry my hands in the restroom. i use my re-usable mug for my cup of coffee, and also for the water i drink during the day (from the tap). i heat my lunch up in a glass bowl i brought from home, and eat it with real utensils, using a cloth napkin to wipe my mouth. i pack up my teabag and apple core in my otherwise empty food containers to take home to compost. i continue doing work (and internetting in between bits of work). at 4pm, it's time to head home, so i shut down my computer, turn off the monitor, check to see if the lights in my bosses' offices are off, grab my food containers and my jacket and ride the elevator downstairs again.
i walk a half mile up the train route and catch the train at brooklyn bridge. this is as far as "every day is mostly the same" goes.
today's thursday, so that means stopping on the way home to pick up the csa share. today's also sign-up for the winter share, so hang out and talk with diane a bit about what would be required of the site co-ordinator for winter share pickup, even though someone else has already signed on for the job. then i head home with our veggies (this week we got red boston lettuce, daikon radishes, rutabegas, yellow potatoes, cilantro, parsley, scallions, and red cabbage). i could walk the 2.5 miles home from sunnyside, but it's remarkably dark already, and i can see the bus coming when i get to the bus stop, so i decide to hop on. i get off the bus 2 miles later and walk the 0.5 miles home from there.
6:15pm i get home, put the veggies on the table and make my way upstairs to see what is going on in the house. erin's watching re-run tv to unwind from a stressful event at work. we argue briefly, and i go play with the kitten in the bedroom. usually i would work on making dinner, but we're having a sort of going-away celebration for our roommate who is moving out this weekend. so tonight isn't going to be particularly low-impact in terms of food. at least we don't order in, but we do go to the regular grocery store and pick up several items of unknown origin (taco shells, whole wheat tortillas, tapatio hot sauce, vegetarian taco mix in a box, pre-shredded cheese, sparkling apple cider from california, on-sale halloween candy). it's going to be a taco night ;)
when we get home with the groceries (i'm sad to say that we did drive to the store, but i'm glad to say we didn't take use plastic bags to carry our purchases), christine and ruben are home. we all gather in the kitchen for an entertaining version of making dinner. we eat, we drink apple cider, we laugh, there's a toast, christine brought cupcakes...
8:30pm no one can eat any more food. lol. we pull out the scattergories game and play three rounds. then we get distracted. after a bit, someone picks up the alphabet die and starts rolling it. it morphs into a free association word game, each of us calling out words that start with whatever letter lands on top. then we decide to make up sentences, each of us rolling the die in turn and adding a word to the sentence. good wholesome low-impact fun. much much much laughter. many lewd references. around 10:45pm we all head up to our respective beds.
i wake up to my cell phone going off at 5:30am. i don't keep an alarm clock plugged in, and i only have to charge my cell phone every other day. i plug in the bedside lamp, click it on, roll over and poke/converse erin awake enough for us to get up. since i'm not showering today, this takes up to a half hour and involves some giggling. we get up, i grab my work clothes and the kitten and the kitten's box and my cell phone and unplug the bedside lamp before heading downstairs. i let the dog out, feed the cats, start the coffee (actually, erin usually does the coffee, which is fair trade, organic and locally roasted in brooklyn), use the bathroom after erin to combine our flush. if there's any water left in the shower bucket from whoever showered last then i pour that into the toilet to flush it instead of pulling the handle. i dress, deodorizing with my lovely crystal deo. back in the kitchen, i toast a couple pieces of bread (this week is whole wheat from a local bakery, but i'd rather if it were homemade) and spread them with either peanut butter (organic, but not local) or yogurt cheese from ronnybrook farms (today was yogurt cheese). a cup of coffee with ronnybrook milk rounds out breakfast. i read whatever is on the table while i eat (we do still get the newspaper). i grab leftovers from the fridge (today i'm having pumpkin black bean chili, leftover parsley potatoes and steamed broccoli), and an apple from the counter and stuff them in my bag. i wash my plate and knife (unless erin uses them for her toast) and rinse out my coffee cup and hang it up. i brush my teeth and head out the door to the bus. it's now 7:00am.
by bus and subway train i travel the 10 miles to work. i like seeing the same people on the bus and train most days. in the summer i was biking to the train station, but i've let that go for now.
8:00am i arrive at work and take the elevator to the 41st floor. i put my lunch in the fridge, turn on my computer, and do a day's work. if i have something that's not paper recyclable, i take it to the common trash can in the kitchen. i use a cloth i keep in my pocket to dry my hands in the restroom. i use my re-usable mug for my cup of coffee, and also for the water i drink during the day (from the tap). i heat my lunch up in a glass bowl i brought from home, and eat it with real utensils, using a cloth napkin to wipe my mouth. i pack up my teabag and apple core in my otherwise empty food containers to take home to compost. i continue doing work (and internetting in between bits of work). at 4pm, it's time to head home, so i shut down my computer, turn off the monitor, check to see if the lights in my bosses' offices are off, grab my food containers and my jacket and ride the elevator downstairs again.
i walk a half mile up the train route and catch the train at brooklyn bridge. this is as far as "every day is mostly the same" goes.
today's thursday, so that means stopping on the way home to pick up the csa share. today's also sign-up for the winter share, so hang out and talk with diane a bit about what would be required of the site co-ordinator for winter share pickup, even though someone else has already signed on for the job. then i head home with our veggies (this week we got red boston lettuce, daikon radishes, rutabegas, yellow potatoes, cilantro, parsley, scallions, and red cabbage). i could walk the 2.5 miles home from sunnyside, but it's remarkably dark already, and i can see the bus coming when i get to the bus stop, so i decide to hop on. i get off the bus 2 miles later and walk the 0.5 miles home from there.
6:15pm i get home, put the veggies on the table and make my way upstairs to see what is going on in the house. erin's watching re-run tv to unwind from a stressful event at work. we argue briefly, and i go play with the kitten in the bedroom. usually i would work on making dinner, but we're having a sort of going-away celebration for our roommate who is moving out this weekend. so tonight isn't going to be particularly low-impact in terms of food. at least we don't order in, but we do go to the regular grocery store and pick up several items of unknown origin (taco shells, whole wheat tortillas, tapatio hot sauce, vegetarian taco mix in a box, pre-shredded cheese, sparkling apple cider from california, on-sale halloween candy). it's going to be a taco night ;)
when we get home with the groceries (i'm sad to say that we did drive to the store, but i'm glad to say we didn't take use plastic bags to carry our purchases), christine and ruben are home. we all gather in the kitchen for an entertaining version of making dinner. we eat, we drink apple cider, we laugh, there's a toast, christine brought cupcakes...
8:30pm no one can eat any more food. lol. we pull out the scattergories game and play three rounds. then we get distracted. after a bit, someone picks up the alphabet die and starts rolling it. it morphs into a free association word game, each of us calling out words that start with whatever letter lands on top. then we decide to make up sentences, each of us rolling the die in turn and adding a word to the sentence. good wholesome low-impact fun. much much much laughter. many lewd references. around 10:45pm we all head up to our respective beds.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
p.s. garbage patch research voyage
remember the humongous floating garbage patch i mentioned some time ago?
check out the ship2shore blog about a research voyage (going on still? three weeks starting september 9) into the heart of the garbage patch.
check out the ship2shore blog about a research voyage (going on still? three weeks starting september 9) into the heart of the garbage patch.
Ten Year Plan
start 11:04a.m.
i haven't been one to make up "goals" or lists of things to do before i die. i don't believe that i am the things i accomplish. somehow, even with my desire to control things and my fears of change, i tended to go with the flow and follow where my life led me.
my life led me to a place of environmental concern. now i feel like i have a basic underlying premise to living. a framework in which to continue. it feels like a foundation and a place to push off of at the same time.
so, i've developed a sort of ten-year-plan that may take more or less time than that. my dad has always encouraged me to continue in higher learning. until this point, i was "on leave" from school since having completed my bachelor of arts degree in december 2004. i didn't know where to go. i didn't have anything i wanted to study enough to make a graduate school plan around it. slowly, slowly, my interest in growing food sustainably has... taken root and grown in my mind. i'm not at a point where i am certain of the path ahead of me, but i'm looking into the requirements for grad school and the options in terms of agriculture/horticulture programs of study. i'm not entirely convinced that grad school is where i want to head. maybe a bachelor of science degree... maybe coursework and study outside of a school environment. but i'm thinking about it.
another factor in the ten year plan is property and a homeland. zane over at lichenology had a passage about the idea of homeland that i really liked, and i may find it again and link to it. i want land that is home. i have an idea of where i'd like it to be (western new york state), and i have an idea of what i'd like it to encompass: large garden, perennial food plants/trees, and a house that i've built with my own hands. to the final point, i've been considering building with cob, which uses the land itself to fashion a very... earthy home. i want to live on the land as i build. i want to build compartmentally, starting with the main room of the house and adding rooms as they happen. in this way, once the main room is built, i could conceivably live in the house as i'm building it. (note, i say "i", but maybe i should substitute a "we" instead? i just don't want to speak for erin, even though she is very excited about the land-and-home idea.)
twelve minutes.
i haven't been one to make up "goals" or lists of things to do before i die. i don't believe that i am the things i accomplish. somehow, even with my desire to control things and my fears of change, i tended to go with the flow and follow where my life led me.
my life led me to a place of environmental concern. now i feel like i have a basic underlying premise to living. a framework in which to continue. it feels like a foundation and a place to push off of at the same time.
so, i've developed a sort of ten-year-plan that may take more or less time than that. my dad has always encouraged me to continue in higher learning. until this point, i was "on leave" from school since having completed my bachelor of arts degree in december 2004. i didn't know where to go. i didn't have anything i wanted to study enough to make a graduate school plan around it. slowly, slowly, my interest in growing food sustainably has... taken root and grown in my mind. i'm not at a point where i am certain of the path ahead of me, but i'm looking into the requirements for grad school and the options in terms of agriculture/horticulture programs of study. i'm not entirely convinced that grad school is where i want to head. maybe a bachelor of science degree... maybe coursework and study outside of a school environment. but i'm thinking about it.
another factor in the ten year plan is property and a homeland. zane over at lichenology had a passage about the idea of homeland that i really liked, and i may find it again and link to it. i want land that is home. i have an idea of where i'd like it to be (western new york state), and i have an idea of what i'd like it to encompass: large garden, perennial food plants/trees, and a house that i've built with my own hands. to the final point, i've been considering building with cob, which uses the land itself to fashion a very... earthy home. i want to live on the land as i build. i want to build compartmentally, starting with the main room of the house and adding rooms as they happen. in this way, once the main room is built, i could conceivably live in the house as i'm building it. (note, i say "i", but maybe i should substitute a "we" instead? i just don't want to speak for erin, even though she is very excited about the land-and-home idea.)
twelve minutes.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
here or there?
is it better for trash to lie on the street or for trash to be carted to a landfill where it will be deprived of air and thus fossilize in a ginormous mound?
i can't decide. i can't wrap my mind around the idea that putting all our trash in one place (especially with the state of our landfill problem*) would be any better than leaving it on the street.
but is leaving it on the street really better? a "clean" city is more pleasant to live in than one that has trash all over. enviro groups do clean-ups of their favorite natural places... but where does the stuff they remove from "nature" go? to the landfill, eh?
then the issue becomes, what does it mean to throw something "out"? is there any way to safely remove our unwantables away from our living areas without destroying someone else's living areas?
exceedingly tough questions considering how much of our trash these days is NOT part of a natural cycle of decomposition and re-earthing.
i just don't know.
*entirely vague statement with no citation to back it up ;)
i can't decide. i can't wrap my mind around the idea that putting all our trash in one place (especially with the state of our landfill problem*) would be any better than leaving it on the street.
but is leaving it on the street really better? a "clean" city is more pleasant to live in than one that has trash all over. enviro groups do clean-ups of their favorite natural places... but where does the stuff they remove from "nature" go? to the landfill, eh?
then the issue becomes, what does it mean to throw something "out"? is there any way to safely remove our unwantables away from our living areas without destroying someone else's living areas?
exceedingly tough questions considering how much of our trash these days is NOT part of a natural cycle of decomposition and re-earthing.
i just don't know.
*entirely vague statement with no citation to back it up ;)
Saturday, September 08, 2007
surprise!
this morning we stumbled into the homegrown fair in union square (put together in conjunction with farm aid this weekend), and as we got there, daryl hannah was introducing the ditty bops, who i'd heard OF but never actually HEARD. yay! plus there were tons of tents including groups like just food. very exciting! we listened for a bit but chose to move on because we needed to get food and man was it HOT and SUNNY out!
Friday, September 07, 2007
stepping out
an important part of using less is relocalization of my life. that means not only eating local and "buying american" (which there was a fun article about in the ny times yesterday), but also building a community structure where i am. while i know my neighbors by name and all, it would be nice to expand my people-base and make some more personal connections outside of my small section of 71st street.
to this end, i have a couple of new groups that i'll be exploring in the coming week. the first is a contra dance on saturday with the country dance new york group. i haven't been to a proper contra in a very long time, and i miss it. i miss the music and the dance, and i think i'm at a point where i could do the socialization a bit better, too. the other one is a peak oil meetup group that i joined yesterday whose monthly meeting is this coming wednesday. exciting!
to this end, i have a couple of new groups that i'll be exploring in the coming week. the first is a contra dance on saturday with the country dance new york group. i haven't been to a proper contra in a very long time, and i miss it. i miss the music and the dance, and i think i'm at a point where i could do the socialization a bit better, too. the other one is a peak oil meetup group that i joined yesterday whose monthly meeting is this coming wednesday. exciting!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
oh, how i love my chocolate and sugar addiction
when i was a kid, i wanted to be a grown-up. why? because grown-up people could eat candy and sweets anytime they wanted to.
that's still the best thing about being an adult, as far as i'm concerned.
mmm... chocolate.
that's still the best thing about being an adult, as far as i'm concerned.
mmm... chocolate.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
so far today i have eaten:
2 slices of homemade whole wheat bread with organic peanutbutter
4 itty bitty toblerone bars (decidedly not local :/ )
organic coffee with local milk
less than organic coffee with less than local milk
a fig grown in brooklyn on a co-worker's tree
cucumber and tomato salad with (non local) feta
peach, blueberry, grape salad
organic echinacea tea (not local)
cucumber slices
tap water
4 itty bitty toblerone bars (decidedly not local :/ )
organic coffee with local milk
less than organic coffee with less than local milk
a fig grown in brooklyn on a co-worker's tree
cucumber and tomato salad with (non local) feta
peach, blueberry, grape salad
organic echinacea tea (not local)
cucumber slices
tap water
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