Food of the future

January 8, 2010


Schwan'sWe’re Schwan’s customers, or, at least, we’re Schwan’s customers as much as is allowed while only purchasing ice cream every four weeks. It wasn’t a choice – it came with our house. Or, to be clear, the handsome Schwan’s delivery driver came with the house, a bi-weekly reminder of our mortality.

“Only TWO gallons of ice cream?” he says, burrowing a deep gaze into our resistance.

It’s the extra 150 pounds or so I’ve gained since moving into this house that put things into perspective. What is this service? In Today’s Turbulent and Volatile Economy, how do people justify ordering frozen food via delivery service, the prices sitting comfortably at around 20% higher than grocery store rates?

My only guess: this is some weird holdover from the 50’s, when convenience was the invention du jour. The catalog reads like one of those Sears Wish List books, with row after row of frozen food, all ready to put into your Kitchenaid Range or, later on, your Panasonic Microwave Oven.

Jetsons Kitchen of the FutureBroccoli. Penne Gratin. Mixed Vegetables. Sushi Rolls. Meatballs (Turkey or Pork). Pretzel Poppers. Tomato Basil Soup. Green Beans. Sliced Ham. Brown Rice.

“Don’t forget to tell them about this week’s special, the Pirogues.”

Yes. Sorry, handsome delivery driver.

This is Schwan’s. Everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – at the ready. Totally prepared and brought to your door. But now, instead of the future, it seems like an old standby of less frugal times.

This, my friends, is the future we were always waiting for. And it continues to serve us, one bag of frozen grilled mushrooms at a time.

Tags: Food, Home, On..., Technology |

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Gold stars

October 18, 2009


There’s a green star stuck to the coaster. There are two gold stars on the floor, about three feet apart. There are worn stars scattered around the carpet; points curled, foil tarnished, backsides no longer sticky. Everywhere we turn, star stickers turn up.

The sheet upon which the stickers once lived, pulled fresh and untouched from its package just three days ago, is now battered, half-bare and folded, manhandled by wet, greedy hands.

From that sheet to the floor? What’s the progression? How do star stickers find themselves separated from their backing and borne into the wild?

First, Sierra must use the potty. Successfully. No release, no star.

Then, the dominoes begin falling. The potty: Dump. Flush. Rinse. Sierra: Wipe. Wash. Dry.

That Sierra took it upon herself to begin potty training is both frustrating and inspired. Naturally, we weren’t ready. I don’t think any parent has ever been ready. Sure, we might have said to ourselves, “Hey, maybe it’s time to let our child use the bathroom on his/her own.” But no one is really ready when it begins – when the diapers come off and the pull-ups and underwear and toilet paper and accidents and constant sitting and crouching and waiting and waiting and waiting finally take place.

Maybe Sierra was aware of that anxiety. Maybe she was fully aware that, unless she took charge and got the ball rolling, she’d never get to wear the new underwear we’d purchased months ago.

She’d never get to sit and read on the toilet. She’d never get to wash her hands seven or eight times a day.

She’d never get to start depositing star stickers throughout the house.

Oh. There’s another one stuck to my sock.

It’s blue.

Tags: Home, Sierra, Vilhauer |

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Keeping down with the Joneses

July 1, 2009


Before we purchased our house, we snuck a peak at the average utility bills for the family that owned it before us.

They were astronomical. And we knew we could do better.

The reasoning was twofold. First, we knew we couldn’t afford an electric bill that ran nearly three times that from our old house. Second was a matter of pride – that we are able to watch what we use. That, despite our inklings otherwise, we’re armchair conversationalists.

We were lucky enough to see the problem immediately – electric baseboard heating in a very cold basement, connected with its own thermostat, was used more often than needed with two pre-teen boys playing video games non-stop during the winter.

And, we were lucky enough to have something to compare to.

If you knew what your neighbors were using, would you work otherwise? If you could see how you shaped up on average – for example, if you were using less than the neighborhood average, or if you were using more and saw the cost differential – would you make arrangements to change your habits?

According to an article in The Atlantic, energy companies are betting that yes, you would.

It’s being tracked by a company named Positive Energy, and it a new wave of controlling costs through guilt or competition. According to the article:

”In Positive Energy’s reports, a once-intangible bit of social information—how much energy you use relative to your neighbors—is made tangible. Now you can find out not just what people in the same city are doing, but what people in your neighborhood, living in the same-size houses, are doing … but also with customized tips on how to do better.”

Will it work? So far, it has.

”…in Sacramento, where Positive Energy began its pilot program with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in 2008, people who received personalized “compared with your neighbors” data on their statements reduced their energy use by more than 2 percent over the course of a year. In energyspeak, a 2 percent reduction is huge; with the pilot sample of 35,000 homes, it’s the equivalent of taking 700 homes off the grid. And the cost to the utility is minor: for every dollar a utility spends on a solar power plant, it produces 3 to 4 kilowatt-hours; for every dollar a utility spends on the energy reports, it saves 10 times that.”

So, I say this to my local electric and gas companies: Go ahead. Guilt me into cutting back. Make me prove my ability to conserve.

It sounds like the type of challenge that we all could handle.

Tags: Home, Politics |

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The most dangerous job

May 22, 2009


Looking at my hands, palms down, from left to right…

Two healing scars on my left thumb. One from trying to open a paint can with a screwdriver, the other from a vicious cardboard cut while taping a box.

One recovering scab on my right thumb, from a door frame that had seemingly popped out of the woodwork.

One cut on the pad of my right pointer finger, picked up from the edge of a plastic pasta salad container. This one hurt the worst.

A series of rough patches of skin on the top of my right ring finger. Dry weather, constant scrapes and a lack of upkeep over the past two weeks are the culprits.

A gash on my right pinkie, thanks to getting in between the fence and our dog, who was getting a little too uptight while meeting the neighbor dogs.

Add to this the aches, bruises, scrapes and pains that accompanied the move, and I can’t imagine anything more dangerous than being a professional mover.

Tags: Home |

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On moving

May 17, 2009


I haven’t written anything in a while, and I have a lot to say.

You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been three days since we said goodbye to our first home.

And I can’t help but be surprised how much I miss it.

Though we spent the past two and a half months working to buy and sell a home, the move crept up on us. Despite the culmination of events – events that led us from desperate to frantic to endlessly busy in just a few weeks – I am still shocked by how empty our house could become, how it happened so fast, how I was completely unprepared to let go.

How, despite spending months trying to get rid of it, I still wished we could have made it work out. Stay a little longer. Hang out one last time.

It took two trucks and a handful of eager movers to completely gut our house. When it was finished, I walked from room to room, snapping pictures of my favorite features, taking it all in – as empty and clean as when we moved in, with little change aside from seven years worth of wear.

Kerrie shed a few tears. But I kept myself insulated from it, fearing that I’d shed the same tears. I looked forward, not behind; blinded by anticipation, I did what I could to grind out the hours. I unpacked the house several times in my sleep. I imagined where things would go, what I could do, what surprises were in store.

But that last night, I couldn’t help myself. “Here I am,” I thought. “My last night in my first home.”

Our first home. Where we planned our marriage. Brought home a dog. Trained a dog. Nursed little nips from a dog. We got married and bought cars and became adults. We formed our careers though several hiccups. I began writing in the dormer. I began reading again in the dormer. I learned about my new job in the dormer and privately celebrated in the dormer.

It was Sierra’s first home. Our first child. Her first steps, first words, first teeth, first joys and pains. She learned how to be a person in that house. She fell into our lives in that house.

There are a handful of things I’ll always remember. The creaky floors outside of Sierra’s room. The nights sitting in a rocking chair, with only the glaring light of the hall illuminating my book as I lulled Sierra to sleep. The night I listened to John Edwards and Dick Cheney as they debated in the summer of 2004. And the night I watched the first politician I truly believed in elected President four years later.

A lot of life was lived in those walls. But I’m thankful for one thing: the first years in that house were something Kerrie and I had to ourselves. They are memories we hold closely, memories that only we can claim. And likewise, that house is something that we can share with Sierra – a reminder of the days before our family had become four, something special that Sierra gets to remember, to her ability, in the upcoming years.

This new house begins a new chapter. In a few weeks, baby boy will be born. Life will get more complicated, will require more time and more space. And with our new home, we have it. It’s the perfect marking point for what we had and what we are about to become.

We are lucky. We found a house we wanted, put our house on the market, and were lucky enough to still snag it months later. We were able to make it quick. Harried, but painless. We were able to find people to help us – people who we thank for all eternity, from our families to our friends, from our Realtor Briana to the kind souls who owned our home before we moved in.

I miss the old house. But I love this one just as much. And once I come to grips with the idea that my memories are still around, despite the new location, I’ll slowly forget about what we had and focus on only what we have.

All of our stuff is here. It’s strewn across the house, scattered throughout each room like beads of mercury, dispersing in every direction, seeking level ground, but it’s here all the same.

And room by room, things are looking more comfortable. More like what we left behind. More like home.

Really, it’s already there. We’re here. We’ll continue to grow here, will celebrate new lives and new milestones.

This is our new base. Our new home. All that’s changed is the location.

Tags: Career, Friends, Home, Isaac, On..., Vilhauer |

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One quiet corner

May 5, 2009


Everywhere I turn, a box. A human. A pile of belongings belonging either to us or to a visitor. The urge to put things away balances with the urge to give up and hope things will simply put themselves away.

Over the last four days, our house has shrunk. Boxes are collecting in the corners like spider webs, climbing the walls; filled and taped and labeled, they hold our stuff tight, promising to fit neatly in organized rows when it’s their turn to be loaded into the moving truck.

At the same time, Kerrie’s family is staying with us, in town to celebrate the life of the family patriarch, our house serving as a base for her parents and sister during the difficult grieving time.

Despite the extra people and the extra stuff – and especially the extra mess – there are corners of the house that seem empty. Our computer desk and our bookshelves have been wiped clean, ridded of all non-essentials, serving as the base model of a perfect office. It’s in this area I sit. Just to get away for a second.

Before I go back to packing. Navigating a house we’ve suddenly outgrown, looking forward to a move but dreading the act, knowing that despite our love for our new home, and despite the bonds we hold with our family, this house that we’ve outgrown will always be our first.

Though it hardly measures up, the last few days have put things into perspective. If I we can let go of the ones we love the most, we can surely move on from this home.

Tags: Home, On... |

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