The Lazy Faire

Yesterday I tried something a little different.  Early in the morning I prepared notecards for L. and J.  Each one contained the date, a greeting, a random fact about the day, and a list of two tasks.  To J. I gave the tasks of decyphering some Elder Futhark runes (inspired by his interest in Runescape), and vacuuming the living room.  To L. I gave the tasks of creating a Knights Templar-inspired wallpaper image (we had just watched The Maltese Falcon the night before), and mopping the kitchen.  I added some individual personal notes to each card, and left them sealed at the kids’ places at the dining table.

J's illuminated notecard envelope

Both kids completed their tasks without any urging at all, and even went above and beyond.  J. returned his card to me with added illustrations.  And L. mopped not only the kitchen, as I’d asked, but the hall and dining room as well.

Knights Templar graphics by L

We watched half of “On the Waterfront” in the evening, and read a chapter of The Amber Spyglass.  And J. downloaded an RC flight simulator for the XBox 360, which inspired a discussion of how to make coordinated turns with aileron, rudder, and elevator.

I finished mowing the lawn.  An hour or so pushing a reel mower with a 20lb baby on your back is a lot of exercise!

Stacey was out in the evening, so I was taking care of Kashti and making dinner.  Kashti has taken very much to the role of “attachment child”.  He’s perfectly happy - so long as he’s always being worn or held.  Which seems like healthy behaviour in a nine-month old.  We get frustrated sometimes; but someday we’ll miss the days whenall it took was closeness to mommy and daddy to make him happy.

EDIT: Oh yeah, J. started reading Watchmen again, and we had a brief conversation about the origins of the name “Rorshach” and the inkblot test.

It’s that time of year again! The first official Beer & Badminton of 2009 will be this Saturday, May 23, at The Lazy Faire (aka the Grimm residence). Bring a beverage to share, and a chair if you want to sit on anything besides the ground between games. We have plenty of racquets, but if you have a favourite racquet bring that too.

We’ll get started in the early afternoon, say 1:30PM, and wrap up whenever we get tired.

Hope to see you there!

Summary

This was a frolic marked by extreme busyness but relative routine-ness as compared to the heavy travel of recent frolics.  Highlights this time time around centered around Spoutowood Farm.  First, Stacey was accepted as the newest apprentice at the Spoutwood CSA!  And we spent two lovely days  at the Faerie Festival, something we look forward to every year.

Statistics

Total points attempted: 24

Points completed: 14

Not completed: 10

Unestimated tasks: 1

Notes

What went well

• Avdi found that studying a little bit at a time over coffee in the morning works well.  Areas of study at the moment are home-buying and unschooling.
• We got a lot of lawn work done, including fencing in a groundhog-prone bed and repairing/tuning the reel mower.
• Stacey found that waking up at 5AM works well for her new schedule of full-time farm work.
• After much anxiety, Stacey found no difficulty getting her groove back on her first club night out in a couple years.
• We found a model of baby carrier that works well for extended wearing.
• L. finally met her friend S. in person at the Faerie Fest.
• We adopted a pair of young squirrels found wandering aimless and terrified in the back yard.  L cared for them and gave them a longer life and more love than they would have experienced had they been left to their own devices.
• Stacey learned some new things about her body from her allergen elimination diet.
• Stacey started work as an apprentice at Spoutwood
• We were finally able to pay off our primary credit card, another big step on the path to Zero Debt.
• Avdi got lots of stuff done thanks to his polyphasic sleep schedule.
• We finished our much-delayed plan for meeting homeschool reporting requirements.
• Music, dancing, shopping, and eye-candy were all in abundance at the Faerie Festival; but the best part of all was getting to meet up with a constant parade of friends new and old.  Including one much-welcomed surprise reunion!
• Avdi shortened his workout without reducing performance by using supersets.

Not so well

• Holding a retrospective late in the evening (especially when Stacey had been out late the night before)
• Avdi’s work time has been running unpredictably late, interfereing with family time.
• Despite L.’s best efforts, our adopted squirrel friends sickened and passed away after a couple of weeks.
• Stacey’s allergen elimination diet was no fun
• Avdi has been trying, in vain, to hit upon a polyphasic sleep schedule that sustainably works for him and the family; and getting increasingly frustrated.
• Stacey came to the conclusion that she simply can’t fit studying for her Family Herbalist program into her busy schedule at this time.
• Avdi beginning to feel overwhelmed by the pressure to be maximally productive every day.  Feeling pace to be unsustainable.  Needs more slack in his life.

Ideas moving forward

• Avdi wrap up work at a regular 7PM every day.
• Avdi experiment with a pure “uberman” sleep schedule
• Make the next frolic a “slack frolic” - don’t attempt to accomplish nearly as much.  Stop and smell the roses, etc.

A long time back J. expressed interest in having a boomerang, and on my last trip to Colorado I picked up a ‘rang from Colorado Boomerangs.  Today I looked up some instructional videos on YouTube and then we walked out to the local park and gave it a spin (literally!).  J. pronounced boomerang throwing to be “fun!” after the first throw.  We never quite got it to return to our hands, but we came close a couple of times.

I told him a few of the things I’d found out about boomerangs: that they originated in Australia; that the aborigines used them to hunt; that they would use one type of ‘rang to “corral” a flock of birds and keep them from flying out over a body of water, and a different, hunting boomerang to bring down the cornered birds.

On the way back we discussed the resourcefulness of ant colonies, and I related a few of the more impressive ant accomplishments, like farming and tentmaking.

Awareness of desire reveals some uncomfortable truths.  Sappho called them sweetbitter, but the Buddha agreed only in a relative way.  Yes, desire always disappoints.  But if we can make this disappointment the object of our awareness, then desire can become enlightening.  As the young woman hanging over the cliff in the Zen story of the strawberry discovered, the gap can be sweet, even if we are at the end of our rope.

– Mark Epstein, “Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught
”

Our hands imbibe like roots,

so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.

And I fold them in prayer, and they

draw from the heavens

light.

– St. Francis of Assisi interpreted by Daniel Ladinski, “Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West“

The mind is like a monkey swinging from branch to branch through the forest, says the Sutra.  In order not to lose sight of the monkey by some sudden movement, we must watch the monkey constantly and even be one with it. Mind contemplating mind is the object and its shadow — the object cannot shake the shadow off.  The two are one.  Wherever the mind goes, it still lies in the harness of the mind. The sutra sometimes uses the expression “Bind the monkey” to refer to taking hold of the mind.  But the monkey image is only a means of expression.  Once the mind is directly and continually aware of itself, it is no longer like a monkey.  There are not two minds, one which swings from branch to branch, and another which follows after to bind it with a piece of rope.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Miracle of Mindfulness“

There’s no “should” or “should not” when it comes to having feelings.  They’re a part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control.  When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what we do with those feelings.

– Fred Rogers, “The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember“

It is impossible to overemphasize the paradox represented by every hierophany, even the most elementary.  By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu.  A sacreded stone remains a stone; apparently (or, more precisely, from the profane point of view), nothing distinguishes it from all other stones.  But for those to whome a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality.  In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality.  The cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany.

– Mircea Eliade, “The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion
“

This was an interval punctuated by travel. First we spent a week in Oak Island, NC hanging out with friends and relaxing. Then Avdi was off to Boulder, CO, to get started on his new job. Despite spending so much time out of the house, we somehow managed to make this one of the most productive frolics yet.

Stats:

Points worth of effort planned: 28
Completed: 17
Missed: 11
0 Unestimated

What went well:

• We felt we were more mindful of the tasks we were trying to accomplish, which led to getting more of them done.
• Stacey and the kids got on just fine without Avdi for a week.
• Stacey and L. found costume supplies, and L. manufactured fairy wings and other costume parts for the Fairy Festival
• Avdi’s trip to CO went well
• Stacey made some awesome raw foods
• Avdi started his polyphasic sleep experiment
• Stacey and L. had a good time at the PA Herb Festival, came home with lots of new plants
• We reconfigured the living room to a layout we’re much happier with
• Passover was a success, with lots of good friends and good food - despite almost zero prep time.
• We toured a property for sale that we liked so much we’re accelerating our home-buying plans
• Stacey started on a food elimination diet to track down the source of her allergies

Things that didn’t go so well

• Didn’t get started on Fairy Festival costumes early enough
• Kashti has entered into an ear-splitting “squawking” phase

Ideas for the future

• Start prep. for Fairy Festival (or similar events) two months in advance

I am a woman in need. In need of chocolate, dairy and sugar. Most women, and some men, will understand this without my explaining further.

However right now I cannot have those longed-for things because I am on a Food Allergen Elimination Diet. The goal of the diet is to determine if there is a food that might be aggravating my asthma and eczema. We have zeroed in on pollen as a reason for the asthma and the cold, dry time of year as a reason for my eczema, but is there anything else that might be exacerbating it?

Anyway, so chocolate, dairy and sugar are strictly out for the next two weeks as well as this past week.

Being in need as I am, I decided I had to come up with a solution. Here it is, Hot Carob Drink:

1 cup homemade cashew milk (substitute whatever non-dairy, non-soy “milk” you prefer)
1 Tbsp carob powder, raw or roasted as preferred
1 Tbsp agave nectar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine in saucepan, heat over medium-high to desired temp and enjoy! I could see one blending this up with some ice for a cold drink rather than heating it if one wanted something cool on a hot day instead.

I enjoyed a carob coated rice cake alongside the drink. It’s certainly not chocolate, but for now it will have to do. Besides it’s pretty darn good!

From a post on the ruby-talk mailing list:

I am writing today to say my goodbyes to Ruby
but also to computers and everything else which
we know is destroying our planet, yet which we
continue doing in our denial and madness towards
inevitable annihilation.

This is not a suicide letter, I am going to study
permaculture which I think is one of the few chances
we still have. I am going to try to make a small dint,
but it is only in mass that we will succeed. This is
the endgame.

One of my little rules of thumb is that given any large problem, the people visibly panicking about it probably aren’t part of the solution. Reactionary living is no more sustainable than conspicuous consumption. Zealotry burns out, and the rare person who has the stamina to maintain their zealotry eventually finds themselves marginalized to the point of ineffectiveness. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

Sustainability has to be holistic in order to be, well, sustainable. You can’t contribute to global balance if you have are not yourself at peace. Freaking out can be an important wake-up call; but the daily work of abundance requires steadiness, playfulness, joy.

Surely somewhere someone has documented a recipe for a “Kosher for Passover Quesadilla,” but at my moment of inspiration I didn’t have a copy handy. I started out thinking I was going to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich using matzoh, but then it expanded into this! So here’s what I did, and no it’s not Primal friendly:

2 Kosher for Passover matzohs
~ 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
salsa
sour cream
fresh cilantro sprigs
olive oil cooking spray

Heat a griddle over medium-high heat. Pour hot water over the matzohs and allow to soak while shredding cheese. When griddle is hot, put on 1 of the soaked matzohs. Matzohs will be flimsy and will break easily so put them on carefully and mindfully!! Scatter around the cheese on top of the matzohs then top with the other soaked matzoh. You’ll need to cut the quesadilla while cooking into fourths. Once the bottom is golden brown, flip each quarter and heat through. Serve with salsa, sour cream and cilantro sprigs.

Summary

This frolic was complicated by illness and a late start. We got a great deal done anyway, but much of it went un-planned and un-recorded. Highlights: Avdi exited his old job, and finished the family’s 2009 income taxes, despite being sick for a week. Stacey put together a traditional American Irish St. Patrick’s Day dinner complete with good friends and lots of Guinness. Avdi partially rehabilitated two laptops. And we prepared for our long-awaited vacation to Oak Island, NC.

Stats

13 points of effort scheduled, down from 29 in last frolic.

7 points completed, down from 18 in last frolic.

6 points left incomplete.

3 un-estimated tasks completed.

What Went Well

• We had good food and a lively table of friends for St. Patrick’s Day (not included in the plan)
• Avdi’s exited his previous job smoothly despite being sick the whole week
• Got far more done than we actually tracked
• Stacey and Lily made fabulous food for the CSA pot luck
• Figured out the correct cat food portions – no more whiny underfed cats.
• We were very social – lots of get-togethers.

• Massive reduction in grocery costs, thanks to new coupon know-how and the discovery of a bargain grocery store (thanks Kimberly!)

• Lily’s snake finally shed

Not So Well

• We all got sick

• Still no trip to the zoo

• Got frolic board cards posted a week late, which led to reduced task visibility, which led to getting fewer of our planned tasks done.

• Didn’t track as much of what we did as we did last frolic.