I sometimes think colorful rubber flipflops are the sexiest thing a woman can wear. They’re unpretentious. They come with their own sound effects. They bask in the sunshine. Simply put, they are the footwear of happy souls (and happy soles) with nothing to hide.
Tonight I was watching a documentary called “Enlighten Up!” It’s about a skeptic’s journey into the world of yoga. I am not a yoga person. I can’t stand on my head. I have issues with spandex clothing. The thought of being trapped in a hot room with a bunch of sweaty, stinky strangers in a room is pretty much my worst nightmare. I do, however, recognize a good piece of advice when I hear one.
A quote from the almost-end of the movie, when our protagonist has a sit down chat with an Indian guru.
“You could have come by cycle, you could have come by car, you could have come by elephant, you could have come by foot. To reach here, there are so many directions. That depends on where you are at present. You are the most important person under the sun. What is east? From where does east begin? You are the center point. From you, this is east. For me, east would be different. That point could be west to you. You are the most important person under the sun. It’s not important what you are doing. It’s important why you are doing. You can prepare food for just consuming. You can prepare food for somebody you love. You can prepare food for The Lord. The action will be the same, physically, but inside it will be different. If you are forced to do cooking for somebody you don’t like, you will do it, you will cook. But you won’t enjoy it. Everything depends on you, hangs on you. So you should feel the importance of yourself. You are the most important person.”
If that’s not bad enough, dryer sheets are made of FIBERGLASS. I don’t know about you, that will give me pause to reconsider before I toss another dryer sheet in with a load of panties in the future.
So what’s a girl to do? Bid farewell to fluffy towels? No way. There are plenty of wonderful, natural alternatives to chemical-laden dryer sheets. They are easy to make, use ingredients you probably already have in your cupboard and cost next to nothing.
THE REMEDY
FOR SOFTNESS (IN THE WASH)
Vinegar (among all the other amazing things it can do) is a natural fabric softener. It also removes soap residue, neutralizes tough odors and reduces dryer static. You can add vinegar directly to laundry during the rinse cycle or pour vinegar into the fabric softener dispenser (or fabric softener ball if your machine is dispenserless) of your washing machine.
FOR SOFTNESS AND SCENT (IN THE DRYER)
Grab and old, cotton washcloth that is ready for retirement. Add 3-5 drops of essential oil of your choice (Whole Food’s 365 eucalyptus oil is my favorite – and very affordable!) to your cloth and throw it in the dryer with a load. Replenish cloth with 3-5 drops between each dryer load.
If you’re seeking something with even more wrinkle-release power, check out Mister Steamy, a non-chemical fabric softener/wrinkle release ball that depends on the power of steam to whip your laundry into shape.
CHIME IN: What are your favorite alternative, green or natural laundry tips?
What? It's only an apple!
Fair to say it would have been a slightly different tale (and perhaps a bit nightmare-inducing) if the first chapter of The Bible had been set in the “Slaughterhouse of Eden” rather than the Garden of Eden. Thankfully that is not the case. And while there is plenty of mention about animal sacrifice and frying up fish in Ye Good Book, there’s also evidence that supports a vegetarian diet may have been the original plan before the humans went and f-ed it all up.
GENESIS
The concept and practice of vegetarian has actual scriptural and historical support. According to The Bible, before the fall (ahem, let’s just ignore the fact that was brought on by an animal and a fruit…), human and nonhuman animals (beings that have or are an ānima, Latin for soul) were completely vegetarian, and “it was very good.”
So says the King James version…
Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.*
p.s. Call your mother, she misses you.
Love,
God, *Genesis 1:29
Some people are so convinced that God’s original intention for humankind included adhering to a vegetarian diet, they actually practice something called “The Edenic Diet.” The Edenic Diet was strongly advocated by Reverend Sylvester Graham (1794–1851) who proposed a “diet without meat—especially pork, shellfish, fatty sauces, spices, salt, sugar, coffee, tea, condiments and alcohol.”
Alas, wine is one of those biblical foodstuffs I’d really like to hold onto. And if you want to take it away from me, you’ll have to pry it from my kung-fu death grip. I’m Catholic. What can I say? Sorry, Edenic Diet.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Remember that little line stuffed somewhere between “listen to your parents” and “no adultery?” What was it again? Oh, yeah. Thou shalt not kill – with no specification differentiating the slaughter of animals as better or worse than the slaughter of humans.
Eggs courtesy of Merciful Hearts Farm | Photo Credit: Jennifer Bedenbaugh
When organic milk started popping up in the dairy aisle featuring images of happy, happy cows, I knew there was no turning back. Gone were the days of plastic-jugged factory farm milk at reasonable prices. Almost overnight I became an organic milk consumer, willing to pay significantly more for a half gallon of milk than a galloon of gas (the price of which, I lamented to no end.)
As time has gone on, organics have invaded other sects of the dairy aisle. Yogurt. And now eggs.
For awhile now, I have been paying significantly higher prices for “cage-free” eggs. Last week it occurred to me that I wasn’t exactly sure WHAT that meant. Sure, I like the sound of it – but what does “cage-free” REALLY mean? How is it different from “free range?” And who is controlling these designations?
It was a question that warranted further investigation.
After a quick online search, I discovered the egg producer offering “cage-free” eggs in my local Publix – is actually a MUCH larger egg producer. Cage-free makes up only a small portion of the eggs they produce. And while I feel good supporting cage-free policies, in the end my dollars is still going to a megacorp that utilizes “traditional” (read: inhumane) factory farming practices I disagree with.
Ever since people started becoming aware of the conditions in which laying hens are “traditionally” kept in the U.S. (crammed into “battery cages” packed so closely they can barely move for almost all of their lives, and forced to endure other practices that most people find inhumane), alternatives are becoming increasingly popular. (In Europe they are phasing cages out of egg production.)
There is no doubt that they are better off. BUT the images that the terms “cage-free” and “free-range” bring to mind to most people are pretty far from the reality of most chickens, whether laying hens or those used for meat.
This simply means that the hens are not kept in cages, though there are no regulations to govern care beyond that. According to the Humane Society, cage-free hens usually do not have access to the outdoors. They can engage in many of their natural behaviors such as walking, nesting and spreading their wings. Beak cutting is permitted. There is no third-party auditing.
According to the USDA Trade Descriptions, “birds are raised outdoors using movable enclosures located on grass and fed an organic diet (without hormones or non-organic additives) and/or raised without antibiotics.”The advantage to pasture-raised eggs is that the hens are able to eat a wide variety of the natural food of chickens — greens, grubs, etc. Not only do many people find these eggs to be much tastier, but there is accumulating evidence that the eggs from these hens have better nutritional profiles — less cholesterol, less fat but more healthy Omega-3 fat, and more of other nutrients such as Vitamin A, lutein, vitamin E, and beta-carotene.
These label claims have no relevance to animal welfare.
So with all the crazy labels, what’s an egg-eater to do? My solution was simple – and just a short drive up the road. Instead of purchasing my eggs from a producer by way of a grocery store, I’m turning to local farmers to provide my dairy needs from now on. Not only does buying local give me the ability to know EXACTLY where my eggs are coming from (and thus, how those animals are treated), it also means my dollars stay local, supporting area farms and farmers who share my commitment to animal welfare.
My friend Jennifer (the photographer who of the amazingly beautiful image at the top of this blog) hooked me up with local farmer Deb at Merciful Hearts. Meet Deb and check out the farm on the Merciful Hearts Farm Blog.
Four generations of us.
I have a fairly large extended family. For the most part, our current clan originated in Wichita, Kansas, but through the power invested in marriages, divorces, job transfers and time, we have been strewn out across the country over the years. You’ll now find pushpins in our family map everywhere from the Florida Keys to Honolulu, Austin to Wisconsin.
As a result of our geographic divergence, it makes it very difficult for all (or even many) of us to ever come together in the same place at the same time. Years go by and we don’t see each other. The younger cousins eternally frozen in my mind as munchkins at the “little kids table” are now high school seniors and sophomores in college. The home I cast as the scene for all family memories hasn’t been in our family for nearly a decade. This is just to say – things change, people get busy, time flies.
A year ago my grandmother passed away after a brief battle with cancer. Weddings and funerals. For better or worse, these are the things that finally bring a modern family together. As each branch received the call, they made plans to descend upon the teeny, tiny town of Frederick, Oklahoma – my grandmother’s childhood stomping ground. She had elected to be buried in Frederick beside her parents.
Frederick. How do I explain Frederick? It is perhaps best described as a blip town. A blip I fell very much in love with. Frederick is the kind of little place you pass through on a rural highway heading somewhere else. The last census put the population at under 4,000. I’m not sure what industry supports the economy there, I can only guess farming, and I remember reading somewhere that the median income in Frederick was well under $30,000.
In many ways Frederick feels like a land untouched by time. It struck me as the kind of place that could be described (and accurately so) as the heartbeat of America. A place steeped in family, God and the American dream. Unpretentious and hardworking. A welcome smile with a little grit under the fingernails. A land where people know their neighbors – and the value of a hard day’s work. Frederick isn’t relic as much as it is artifact. It isn’t un-evolved, rather it’s a place – and a lifestyle – unperturbed. From what I have gathered from my mother’s accounts of visiting the sleepy tow in the 50s and 60s, not much has changed for Frederick the past half-century…and that’s okay.
My family descended on Frederick like a bit of a storm. If you’re going to stay in Frederick, your lodging options are limited to two motorlodge-type hotels on the outskirts of town. If you don’t like the first, no worries. The other option is right next door. But if memory serves, one of the signs boasted that they were now offering wireless internet, so you may want to take that into consideration.
Our first afternoon in town, we took a driving tour around the city – and down memory lane. 40-some years later, my mother’s memory was still able to trace its way back to the modest farmhouse my great-grandmother (Mimi) and great-grandfather (Homer) had owned together. It is the place where my grandmother grew up. My mother reminisced about the small patch of land my great-grandmother had tended, a vegetable and flower garden, and beyond it, the land my great-grandfather had tilled. She regaled us with stories of Mimi, the industrious wife of a farmer, snapping the necks of dinner chickens and plucking them clean. It was a stark contrast to the gentle, quiet, if not a bit frail, great-grandmother I remembered. In my mind, she was a soul better suited for gently cradling a cup of tea than slaughtering unsuspecting chickens. The image of her strong and fearless doing what had to be done gave me new perspective.
I come from a long line of strong, courageous females, it would seem.
The funeral went as funerals go. The chapel and cemetery set in a picturesque, rural area outside of town. It was a beautiful day, unseasonably warm, and cows were murmuring off in the distance. I suspect our unusual quietness was a bittersweet recognition of the irony that bidding a loved one farewell was the one thing that had a way of bringing the living back together.
After the casket had been laid, we mobilized the troops. We’d need lunch before everyone traveled back to their separate corners of the world. Having had our fill of Pizza Hut (and having no inclination to try Sonic), we ended up at a little local restaurant called The Bomber Inn.
My people are not a small people. At 5’10″ I am one of the shorter cousins on my mother’s side of the family. As we descended on The Bomber Inn, the staff and regulars looked at us incredulously, but only for a moment before shuffling chairs and tables to make it work. We crammed into booths, shared menus, stormed the single restroom. Clearly strangers, nobody poked or pried. They just made us feel welcome.
I don’t recall what I ate that day. A grilled cheese or a chicken-fried steak, who can say for sure? I remember strange things from that afternoon. One of the waitresses asking my cousin to come into the kitchen to reach something on a high shelf. An older gentleman approaching my uncle to tell him he had a “mighty handsome family.” More than that, I remember a feeling. A feeling of being acutely aware of the importance of eating together that day.
The truth is we cannot control the ticking of time. We don’t get a say in when or how or where things come together or fall apart. We get busy, stressed, preoccupied, but at least a few times a day, life forces us to stop and eat. And we can choose to do that together.
Author Norman Kolpas once said, “Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort.” That afternoon, crammed in booths at The Bomber Inn, we weren’t just eating lunch, we were celebrating a life. We weren’t just nourishing our bodies, we were nourishing our hearts and our spirits, too.
It’s unlikely I will ever be in Frederick again. I doubt I’ll be back at The Bomber Inn. But I often think of the kindness they showed us that day, and I hope they know that more than a meal, they gave us a rare and precious moment of togetherness in the heartbeat of America. It won’t soon be forgotten.
This infographic has been floating around Facebook. And we wonder why America has an obesity crisis?
Also, the fact that the “affordable” food model looks like a candy corn is not lost on me. Mmm…sugar corn.
Wishing everyone a happy weekend. I am off to secure an engagement gift for my GVL bff. The party is in six hours. According to my calculations, that gives me just enough time for to drive around town, find nothing, panic and ultimately find something perfect at my last hope stop. At this point we can only hope Salt-N-Peppa were right when they said: bet’cha bottom dollar you were best under pressure.
That’s right. I just quoted S-n-P.
Happy weekend, y’all.
Beanfeast circa "a long time ago"
Examine the above painting closely, and you will notice a few things…
1) Rear left: drunk lady smiling drunkenly at her reflection in the mirror
2) Front left: Drunken guest vomiting drunkenly on little girl’s dress
3) Far right: Drunken woman about to “wardrobe malfunction”
WELCOME TO BEANFEAST!
“What the hell is Beanfeast?” you wonder. Well, I’m glad you asked.
According to Wikipedia, Beanfeast was an annual dinner given by an employer for his workmen. Colloquially, it describes any jollification.” In layman’s terms, it’s a rip-roaring good time bankrolled by the boss. The term “Beanfeast,” (and its shorter form “beano) is fairly common in Britain, lesser known in the United States. (Although, after reading this Wikipedia, I am already planning a stateside Beano come December 2012…)
The origin of beanfest is uncertain. In short, despite several meetings of the historical minds, nobody is really sure what the hell was going on at Ye Olde Beano, but according to all the Beano art left behind, it’s safe to assume everyone was tanked and the scene probably closely resembled 18th century period pieces featuring 1980s one-hit wonders. As tends to be the case, when all else fails – blame France. And that’s exactly what historians did.
The most probable theory connects Beano to the French custom of a feast on Twelfth Night at which a cake with a single bean buried in it was served to party guests. He or she who had the good fortune to bite into the slice of cake in which the bean was concealed was dubbed “Bean King” or “Bean Queen.” (And occasionally broke a tooth in the process, but I’m sure we can all agree an 18th century root canal is a small price to pay to be dubbed legume royalty…)
“What the hell?” you are probably wondering. “Why would anyone partake in such nonsense?” Let us take a moment to consider a couple things:
1) Drunk. Drunk! Everyone was drunk back in those days. Trying to ward off black death was a full-time, if not a little depressing, job. And if drinking moonshine from a goat bladder and burying beans in baked goods helped people get through the day – so be it.
2) More importantly, Beanfeast was essentially an old timey office party. And if you have ever been to ANY office party with an open bar, you know how people get. There is always that one guy who can’t hold his appletinis and gets dismally tanked in an impressively short amount of time immediately before doing something incredibly, horrifyingly embarrassing in front of an audience of his peers and superiors. This directly precedes the phase in said colleague’s professional life wherein he will always be referred to as “That guy who XYZ-ed at the 20XX Christmas party” …and will be remembered as such for the rest of time.
3) Party games are FUN! For centuries, the human urge to combine friends + booze + friendly competition has lead to ingenuity in the field of fun. Just to name a few: “CORNHOLE” (because there is nothing creepy about replicating a bean bag toss you probably played in preschool and giving it an anatomically suggestive name that makes everyone think of …not corn), “BEER PONG” (aka “Alcohol poisoning by the numbers”), and my personal favorites “TRUTH OR DARE” and “I NEVER.” As it turns out, real life isn’t anything like “Taxi Cab Confessions,” and when you blabber about your past there are immediate, swift and sometimes terrible ramifications. You see, clouded judgment + self-disclosure in a bar makes for some mighty uncomfortable situations. And while your priest may be forgiving of the litany of things you indirectly confess to in an alcohol-induced haze, the spouse sitting next to you – not so much. AWK.WARD.
4) If reasons 1 – 3 simply haven’t convinced you of the merits of Beanfeast, let me remind you of this: we live in a time where the “Forever Lazy” exists. Let ye who has never worn an adult onesie cast the first stone.
But I digress. Back to Beanfeast…
As far as historians can tell, the purpose of Beanfeast may be tied to a once-held popular belief that the weather for the ensuing year was determined by the weather of the twelve days between Christmas to Twelfth Night. Each individual night during this period was linked to a month in the forthcoming year. Thus the King of the Bean may have originally reigned for a period twelve days, his chief duty being the performance of magical ceremonies for ensuring good weather during the ensuing twelve months. I like to believe it somehow involved a Ribbon Dancer.
Alas, much like the life cycle of a butterfly (or a Kardashian marriage) life as a royal was brief and fleeting. A mere twelve days after ascending to the throne, the spell was broken and Bean King was stripped of his crown, thrust back into a pauper’s world, with the likes of those who could not afford to shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joes.
