Mystery Flower

Mystery Flower

May 9, 2008 - 10:16 am PDT

Anyone know what this flower is? Corey and me saw this plant a lot on our way to Louisiana, and were curious. It was especially prevalent in Virginia, and it’s very pretty. Click the image for a close-up to see the flowers better. Recognize it at all?

Categorized: General

What do you think?: 14 Comments

High School Holocaust Education

High School Holocaust Education

May 7, 2008 - 10:57 am PDT

This is what makes me frustrated with Holocaust history education in grade school…

First, he does not mention the homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, gypsies and other people who were just plain different that were every bit victims of the holocaust as Jews were. The Holocaust wasn’t just an attempt to wipe out the Jewish people.

Second, Hitler wasn’t elected chancellor of Germany, he was appointed by the president. From what I remember the Nazi party wasn’t even the most popular party in the Reichstag, and the Nazis used a lot of bullying to gain their power during election times.

Third, it was easy for Hitler and the Nazis to use Jews as a scapegoat. Anti-semitism wasn’t just a Nazi thing, it was a problem all over the world even in the US. Throughout history in Europe Jews had often been trodden on and treated like less than their Christian neighbors. People didn’t have to avoid telling Nazis they were Jewish, it would have been well known in the communities who was Jewish and who wasn’t.

Fourth, people did rise up and object to Kristallnacht, and many left Germany after that. It’s so naive and stupid to say it’s just that easy to have stood up, and why didn’t they just stand up to the rest of the country who were very willing to let Jews be a scapegoat for their problems.

Fifth, Jews weren’t just thrown into “cattle cars” and executed from the start. They were first singled out with the star badges, then they were moved to ghettos - separated areas of certain cities - then they were moved to working camps, then things escalated to the several execution camps that you learn about in school.

You can’t impose your modern views on the people of the past. You can’t impose your sense of right to property, liberty, and all those rights we Americans claim to have. You can’t ignore the context of Germany before World War II, and you can’t ignore the mentality of the various groups of people involved in any aspect of the Holocaust.

I am so irritated with the stuff that American high school teachers tell their students about the Holocaust. I don’t care if this guy was a high school teacher or not; what he is teaching is what many people are taught. So much of American grade school history is rooted in myth, and not in the actual facts of historical events. Christopher Columbus was not the great discoverer of our country, and he wasn’t the wonderful man he’s played out to be in many history books. We as a country take it too much for granted that the people we think should know better are telling us the facts, and don’t take enough upon ourselves to learn what’s really there.

Categorized: Education

What do you think?: 6 Comments

Dinner Time!

Dinner Time!

May 4, 2008 - 4:37 pm PDT

I should have missed making dinner at night more than I did when we didn’t have a car. Corey and me for a few months now have been back on track with our delicious dinners since we got the car and have been making regular grocery trips. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy cooking and eating good food. The last three nights I’ve made some really great meals if I do say so myself.

Lentil Dahl While Corey and me were in our hotel the night before we got home from Louisiana we were watching this food show about cooking in India. One of the meals that the host tried was lentil dahl, and it looked so good. We decided to try it out when we got home since we had some lentils ready to be used in the cupboard. It’s a fairly simple meal and if you google the name you’ll find several recipes to get the basic gist. It’s just cooked lentils with a particular blend of spices. We bought some pitas to eat with it and used those instead of utensils to eat it. Yummy. I will have to admitt one thing though, Corey made this meal.

Chili This is one of my favorite things to make, but I’m really not sure why. My recipe is fairly simple to make, but it’s different every time. I guess you could call it more a formula than a recipe. However, I made this two nights ago and even though it was lacking meat (it’s just not a good chili without meat) it was the best chili I’ve ever made. Corey agrees with me and I think it’s because we decided to cook a ham hock in the pan first. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s used in a lot of southern cooking and you should be able to find it in a good sized grocery store. Basically you cook it (probably with some oil) in the bottom of your pan to get the flavor. You don’t eat it, but the flavor it adds is just wonderful. Add some well made sour cream and deeelicious cheddar (thank you Cabot!) and you’ve got a beautiful chili.

Oh, and one thing I highly recommend is that you watch the Good Eats episode where Alton Brown shows how to make your own chili powder. It makes a big difference and is quite easy if you’ve got a spice grinder (cheap coffee grinder used only for spices).

Southern Style Cookin’ Last night I did pretty good with dinner as well, and Corey deemed it good southern cooking. It wasn’t anything traditionally southern, just a simple well seasoned meal with good stuff. I roasted some whole chicken breasts (basically a roast with the legs and wings removed) with an herb butter, stuck a few potatos in the bottom of the dish to roast with it and soak up the flavor. We also had some slow pan cooked broccoli and green beans with butter and lots of seasonings. I don’t care what fancy cooks say about steaming or sauteeing broccoli, because I like my broccoli cooked almost to mush. Add some corn bread and you’ve got a damn good meal.

While both me and Corey like cooking the same, we’ve learned over time that we have very different cooking styles. A while ago we decided that whoever didn’t cook had to do the dishes. Since I don’t enjoy doing dishes, I often opted to cook and that has become our habit now. This is probably for the best because my cooking style lends itself to cooking on the fly. Most meals take me about an hour, and most stuff that I cook involve throwing stuff together in one pot and seasoning to my liking. Corey’s cooking style involves a lot more research, recipe lookups, and planning which is probably not best for night to night cooking.

My chili formula: simple-chili.txt

Categorized: Food & Tea, General

What do you think?: 4 Comments

Hippified

Hippified

May 2, 2008 - 10:37 am PDT

Corey and I have changed a whole lot since we started living together, and have become a lot more aware of the things that we buy and eat. I think that it all started with an increased awareness of what makes food good, and our obsession with the Food Network (especially Good Eats). We went from typical consumers to people that have reusable grocery bags, are label readers avoiding chemicals we don’t recognize, high fructose corn syrup, and trans fats, wishing we could ditch all containers and buy everything in bulk.

Now we didn’t make these lifestyle changes overnight, and a lot of the things we do now we couldn’t have imagined doing a year or more ago. There’s one thing I’ve learned that’s necessary to being an aware consumer. You have to take things one small step at a time, and don’t beat yourself up when you think you’re not doing enough. One small lifestyle change is better than nothing. Now, I don’t care if you believe in global warming, and I don’t care what you think that means. What I do know and don’t think anyone can reasonably deny is that producing more waste and putting harmful chemicals into the environment is bad. We’re running out of places to put our waste, and a lot of the chemicals we use and throw away are harmful to us.

I thought I would use this post to share some of the things that Corey and me try to be aware of in our lives. First, we don’t recycle, but remember we’re not going to beat ourselves up about the things we don’t do.

1. We don’t get plastic bags anywhere we shop. When grocery shopping, we use reusable bags or paper when we forget. I’m crafty so paper bags will provide some use later on down the road. When we’re buying things at a place that doesn’t have paper bags (drug store, convenience store, etc) we tell the clerk we don’t need a bag. If you have one just stick it in your purse, or set it in your car. If we absolutely can’t avoid using a plastic bag, we save them and use those instead of trash bags in our bathroom bin. On a slight tangent, one of my biggest pet peeves is when I go to a store and buy one small hand sized item and they automatically stuff it in a bag. Is it really that much easier to carry?
2. We refuse credit card receipts as we don’t use them. I love it when clerks/cashiers ask me if I want a credit card receipt, because I never do. It doesn’t prevent a whole lot of waste that once, but if they’re doing it all day they’ll save about 80% of the waste. OK that statistic was made up, but when I was working at a bagel/coffee shop I asked every customer using a credit card if they wanted a receipt. The vast majority of people say no.
3. We avoid high fructose corn syrup. It’s bad for your body and for various reasons (which I’m not educated enough to tell you) increasing our corn crop may be bad for us in the long run. This is going to be difficult, because once you decide to be aware of this ingredient in your food you’ll find it’s in nearly everything. Ketchup, anything sweet, most unsweet foods, and the vast majority of processed foods have high fructose corn syrup.
4. We stay away from trans fats. A nutritionist will be able to tell you exactly why trans fats are bad for you, but I’ll just tell you stay away from them. Anything with hydrogenated oils will have more trans fats.
5. We avoid ingredients we don’t recognize. First of all, it’s a whole lot cheaper to buy real foods as opposed to processed prepared foods. Second, you’ll eat a lot fewer chemical preservatives and things that would probably make you ill if you knew what it was. We didn’t decide overnight to avoid foods with lots of unrecognizable ingredients, but the end result is that we eat a lot better now. Knowing what ingredients are good and bad for you takes some time to learn. We started with one or two things that we’d learned to avoid, and we’ve been looking at ingredient lists for a while now so it really doesn’t take any more time. If we see a long paragraph of things, we generally put it back. If you start being more aware of the ingredients of foods you buy, you’ll find it incredibly refreshing when you can recognize every ingredient and probably have most of them in your kitchen (like Goldfish!).
6. We use eco friendly cleaning products. There are several companies that produce cleaning products that are more bio-degradable, better to be released into the environment, and less toxic for you ([Seventh Generation](http://www.seventhgeneration.com/) being one). We also generally avoid products with scents or color additives because they really aren’t necessary (and the scents bother Corey).
7. We reuse containers and buy in bulk when we can. Whenever we finish spice bottles, or containers that can be used for storage we wash and save them. Since we do a lot of cooking from scratch, we tend to have a lot of staple/base ingredients in the cabinet. We also use a lot of spices and herbs in our cooking, and it’s nice to have a place to store them without having to buy more plastic. Buying in bulk allows us to reuse those containers as well as not getting more. We’re still getting better about this, but we’re lucky to have a great source for bulk foods at a nearby coop.
8. We try not to use paper towels. I’m a knitter, and I love knitting useful things. This means that we’ll always have a steady supply of dish rags and cleaning rags. We try to use cloth to clean up whenever we can, and only rarely use paper towels. You don’t have to be a knitter to do this either; just buy more rags or reuse old towels by ripping them into cleaning sized rectangles.
9. We use the long lasting low wattage bulbs. They really do last longer. We rarely change our lightbulbs. Fewer lightbulbs to throw away, and less electricity use.
10. We like reusable toiletries. OK that may sound wierd but it was the best way I could put these two things together. First, Corey has been looking at safety razors (non disposable old-fashioned) and learning about the process and materials he’ll need. Second, recently I made a purchase of what is generally called a menstrual cup ([wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup) scroll to the bottom for company listings). For some of you that may be TMI, and as recent as 6 months ago I would have told you no f%$@ing way. If you’re curious just click the wikipedia link. Just think of how much money you spend each month on feminine products and what else you could be spending that on.

Categorized: General

What do you think?: 18 Comments

Home!

Home!

May 1, 2008 - 8:43 am PDT

I am SO glad to be home! It was SO nice to sleep in my own bed. I am SO glad to not be driving. I drove 26 hours in the last two days and I’ve had enough.

I’ve learned many things about drivers in the past week and a half as we drove to and from Louisiana. One of those things is that people are stupid. Also, southern cops put so many more people on the interstate than northern states do, and the people of those states know it (meaning they drive slower). A lot of people in the south don’t understand that the right lane is the driving lane and the left lane is the passing lane. An incredibly large amount of people don’t use their blinkers when changing lanes. Some drivers think that because I’m giving the car in front of me several cars length of space that I’m going slower than them, and that they need to swerve around me to get between us. Oh yeah, and a word of advice: If you’re stopping behind another car on a hill, break your normal habit of stopping 2 inches from their rear for just that once. They may be driving a standard and will drift back a bit. If they hit your car, it’s your fault.

Oh, and word of advice number two: If you see a police car on the interstate and feel the need to slow down, don’t go 10mph below the speed limit.

Categorized: General

What do you think?: 9 Comments

Louisiana or Bust!

Louisiana or Bust!

April 17, 2008 - 4:57 pm PDT

First off I want to say that I don’t eat enough bananas. I’d forgotten how good they are!

Corey and me are leaving Saturday for our trip to Louisiana, and until today I wasn’t very excited. I’m going to be doing all the driving, and it’s quite a trip. Three days of 8-10 hours driving (not including stops). I’m so thankful that my B-12 vitamins have started working because I don’t think I could have done it in my previous condition.

Yesterday and today we’ve really been in overdrive getting our stuff ready to go. Today has been amazingly beautiful outside so we were sitting in the grass while our laundry was going. I had the idea that we should set up our tent and make sure we had everything (and make sure we knew how to set it up) and boy did that bring back memories. I was very lackluster about our one night camp out in Virginia the first night, but setting up the tent has me really excited. I miss being outside,  and camping and all that. I used to spend nearly all summer outside as a kid.

Today while I was at work the car was in the shop next door getting a good once over before the trip. I can’t help but be nervous every time I take the car in because I expect them to have something unexpected to tell me. However, this place is good and the car is in good shape and good to go for the trip. The Civic is going to be our new home for 3 days this week. We’re going right now to town so we can vacuum the car and give it a good wash. We almost never do this so it’s probably going to be the cleanest it will be for a long time.

Random thought: It’s really strange seeing the sun out and knowing it’s about 73 degrees and everything is bare, baren, and dead like winter. Yay for spring in New England! Watch out for snow next week, heheh (while I’m away in the south).

Categorized: General

What do you think?: 6 Comments