The CSA: Week 1

May 31, 2008


CSA Week One

It was sunny. Beautiful. And after a quick start at Queen City Bakery (next to Latitude 44 on 8th and Weber - amazing baked goods, beautiful building) it was starting to get exciting. This was it. Our adventure in freshness. Our experiment in vegetable variety.

Our journey through locally produce was about to begin.

I’ll explain.

From now until September 27th, Kerrie and I - in partnership with my mom - have purchased a full share of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) from Warner’s Produce in Madison, SD.

What this means is we are partners in a local farm. We help pay for crops, and we get a bag of fresh produce from that farm each week. We’ll walk down to the Farmer’s Market, grab our bag, and walk home. What produce we receive is dependent upon the season and what’s ready to harvest. It’s kind of a surprise. And that’s part of the fun.

Sure, it’s kind of weird to be so excited about this. But I am. I’m excited about vegetables. I’m excited about going down to the Farmers Market - no excuses, we have to go every week, rain or shine - and making a morning out of it. A stop by Queen City, a poke around the other booths, and just like that we’ve spent a great morning out and about the teeming masses of Obama supporters and aging hippies.

What will we do with the veggies we receive? What can we possibly make that puts something like kohlrabi to good use? Come to think of it, what the hell IS kohlrabi?

This week, we’ve got to find out. Our haul for week one of the CSA included:
Kohlrabi
Rhubarb
Green onions
Radishes
Lettuce
In addition, we also purchased spinach and asparagus.

Throughout the week, we’ll enjoy fresh vegetables - oftentimes vegetables that we’d never have purchased on their own. We’ll pour through cookbooks. We’ll conjure up recipes from the Internet. Check back next week to see what we’ve done. (See? It’s also a surefire way to get a blog post out on Saturdays!)

And for now? We’ll just bask in our resourcefulness and simply enjoy the scent of fresh vegetables.

Tags: Food, Sioux Falls |

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Lost in thought

May 30, 2008


Lost in thought

Another great photo by Scott Johnson of our darling little girl.

Tags: Baby Pictures, Sierra |

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A life, one day at a time

May 30, 2008


A few days ago, I stumbled upon the most amazing site.

Jamie Livingston, an artist, filmmaker and New York City resident, took a Polaroid of his life. Every day. For 20 years.

They’ve been scanned and collected to form a massive art project, and now are located online, at Some Photos of That Day.

A Polaroid A DayAs individuals, we each live every minute of every day of our lives.

And as individuals, we’re the only people who can claim that. Our friends may spend a lot of time with us. Our parents and partners and children may be present nearly every moment of our lives. But no one is there, every minute – hell, even every day – to live your life with you. Just you. You’re the only one.

So to see a day by day account of someone’s life is fascinating. More than that, it’s amazing, to be given such access, to visualize even a small part of every day of a person’s life.

With Jamie Livingston, we see more than just friends and mundane life. We see everything. We see life as it was viewed by Jamie, his accomplishments, his failures. We see him battle cancer. And we see him die.

There is a great write-up on Mental Floss with a good sprinkling of the highlights of the set. Go there first.

Once you’ve taken a look at that, and once you have a good grip of the generalities, start near the end. On May 1st, 1997. His face, spotted with dots; some kind of medical marking for a test.

Then, continue through the end. Until the very end. October 25th, 1997.

I had just turned 18 the day before. My grandparents were celebrating their wedding anniversary. And Jamie Livingston, someone I have never met, someone whose life I only know through 10 years of Polaroids, died.

You can have your “picture a day for four years” memes and YouTube videos. You can have “365 different beards.”

This is more. This is a life. Captured for all of us. As art. And as a symbol of an artist who, through the wonders of captured images, still lives on today.

Tags: Photography, Random Links |

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Helpless

May 29, 2008


If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 10 months as a parent, it’s how to be helpless.

It must be a primal instinct, that when our children cry (and often our children alone, in their nearly indistinctive way, in a pitch and tone familiar only to those who gave birth to it) we’re drawn to panic. No matter how small. No matter how insignificant.

We’re tied to that sound, to try to change that sound, to try to get rid of that sound; that sound, which signifies pain or sadness or fright, weakness, a need for saving, for protection.

When Sierra cries, my first thoughts are to ignore it. It takes a lot of guts to do that, restraint I often give up on. We’ve tried to teach her to get back to sleep on her own. But those cries. Oh, those cries make it so hard.

I’ve learned to be helpless to her sadness. I understand that not everything can be fixed, and that often all that’s needed is some proximity, a little closeness, something familiar.

I’ve learned to be helpless to her pain. There is little I can do to ease teething; a little medicine, a teething tablet, a hug and reassurance.

I’ve learned to be helpless. I can ease the crying, but I can never stop it altogether. It’s her way of communicating. My job is to do what I can.

But that’s not all.

I’ve learned to be helpless to her future, knowing that the only thing we can do is offer her the right tools, to guide the way and hope she rarely takes the wrong exit.

I’ve learned to be helpless to fate. She is my daughter. But she is not me. Her life will be vastly different, often in a way I wouldn’t choose on my own. I’ve learned to be helpless to the fact that while she may share many of the same traits, I cannot do anything to change what she will become. I can guide. I can suggest. I can hold back and push forward and attempt to ply her personality by any means possible, but it won’t work.

She is her own person. Even now.

So when she cries, I do what I can. Sometimes it’s not much, and I feel helpless. Completely helpless.

I marvel that someday, she’ll be making her own decisions, choosing her own foods, clothing, friends, locations, careers, future, life.

And I feel content. I may be helpless. But that’s all part of being a parent. That’s what makes it all so much fun. To wonder what the future will bring.

To realize that, as much as I may try, everything is out of my hands. Helpless, totally helpless, and blown away by the process of firsthand learning.

Tags: On..., Sierra |

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At least I have a title…

May 28, 2008


My new book, The Whimsy of Particle Physics.

Tags: Books, Literature, Writing |

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On principles

May 26, 2008


I haven’t shopped at Wal-Mart for over three years. It could be more – it’s been so long, I’ve lost count.

Because of a minor feud with Radio Shack, I shunned their doors for over a year.

Until Saturday, it had been 12 years since I had last eaten meat.

All of these things have one thing in common: I boycotted them. And over time, my feelings on the boycott waned. Eventually, the original meaning of the boycott or shunning is forgotten, and the only thing that remains is the principle of having boycotted it in the first place.

I didn’t eat meat because of the principles of it all – I no longer felt the same way I once did, but a kind of principle fueled by momentum kept me vegetarian. I stopped shopping at Radio Shack because they screwed up, and I wouldn’t shop at other Radio Shack stores on principle alone. Wal-Mart? They’re a corporate giant that ultimately does more harm than good to small communities (depending on who you follow, that is). I won’t shop at Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls for this reason.

Most of those original reasons have faded as I’ve grown older. My activism has slackened a bit. I don’t like Wal-Mart, or Radio Shack, but they offer some things that I can’t get elsewhere. So as long as I’m not running to Wal-Mart simply to save a few pennies, what is the point of boycotting the place?

We all have certain things we won’t do on principle. Some of them are good, others extremely petty.

For example I won’t hit a child, kick a dog or cause irreparable emotional damage to someone – not because it’s wrong, but because there are personal principles in place that make those things horribly inappropriate. If kicking dogs was suddenly a legal and acceptable form of discipline, I still wouldn’t do it.

It’s the principle of the thing.

On the other hand, I haven’t shopped at Wal-Mart in a long time. And I poo-poo others when they do. That’s not being helpful or playing from a position of strength – that’s just feeling superior for something that’s as petty as giving someone the silent treatment.

The question is, am I being any more open minded by completely closing off certain sectors of life, whether it be a store or a lifestyle someone else’s personal choice?

Am I really helping anything at all aside from creating a feeling of personal pride – a false image of superiority?

When does a boycott based on principle end up being more petty than its worth?

Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go to Wal-Mart to buy Sierra a pink Twins hat.

Tags: On..., Politics |

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140-character masterpieces

May 23, 2008


Brian Clark over at Copyblogger had a great idea for a contest - The Twitter Writing Contest. The only rule is that your story must be 140 characters, exactly. (140 characters being the maximum number of characters allowed in a twitter message.

Given the chance to enter a writing contest that only takes a few minutes, I obliged with the following entry:

The mob gasps. Two feet jerk, dangle, twist. The sun breaks through; murmurs arise. The accuser, watching, confides in a whisper: It was me.

The contest reminded me a lot of a series of “six-word stories,” a meme that built upon in the spirit of Ernest Hemmingway’s famous six-word masterpiece: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

He called it his best work. I tend to agree.

To put something together so concise is pretty exhilarating, actually. You’re forced to be nearly perfect with your word placement and thoughts, something I’m guilty of being incredibly sloppy with. To have an activity like this is to create an exercise in subtlety. In modesty.

I’m very happy with what I have. My only hope now is that I can win a prize. If not, it’s still one of the best things I’ve written. It’s the most pure, at least.

There are tons more entries in the comments of the contest post. Unfortunately for anyone who wants to enter, submissions are closed.

Tags: Writing |

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