A very bikey Christmas

Bike to Work Pants from Cordarounds on Vimeo.

I ought to also mention that Mr. A and I created the Yule-timate Celebration of the Bike this Christmas by giving each other mostly bike-related gifts. The product in the video above was not one of them, but it's a cool idea, no? Work-ready pants with built-in reflective technology! Maybe next year.

It feels good to be all stocked up on lights, tubes, lube, chain, tools and other various bike-related gear. The best thing, or at least the most immediately useful thing, was a pair of warm wind-resistant cycling gloves, to replace the pair I lost one of sometime over the summer. The coldest weather I've ridden in here was only in the low 40s, but that's still pretty cold – and the regular gloves I wear the rest of the time (for example, while working in my freezing cold office) just don't cut it when the wind is blowing freezing rain onto my hands.

We've also been planning ahead for next summer's garden, first and foremost by reading this book titled, most appropriately, "Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food In Hard Times." The book's main point is that the high-fertility, high-intensity small-space gardening that has become so popular over the last few decades is only really possible when both water and soil amendments are cheap and abundant, which they are fast on their way to not being anymore, what with peak oil, climate change, and the global economic crisis. For people who are not hobbyists but hungry folks in need of real food, he recommends a return to climate-specific plants grown by older methods that require much less water and fussing with soil, and much more room – the idea being that when plants have plenty of space to develop the root systems they need, they can more consistently withstand a wider range of stresses and yield vastly more nutritious food.

His ideas mostly make a lot of sense to me, and we'll be adapting them as best we can on our hard-scrabble scrap of a garden, which is basically a 3-foot-deep box backhoed out of the boulder-choked alluvium that is our lot, and filled with soil and compost from the building materials yard. The sad fact is that even though we have plenty of space (about three acres), we have very little actual soil, and we'll probably never be able to have the kind of garden here that we both would like to grow. I was thinking today that rather than growing vegetables we might be better off fencing off part of the back field and putting a few goats back there, or sheep ... but meat is still relatively cheap, and livestock are more work than I really want to commit to right now. At most I'm still thinking about getting a few chickens again, sometime this spring.

I'm also starting to casually peruse the offerings of the various colleges and universities within a reasonable distance of home, with the half-formed thought that this might be a good year to finally get back to school and finish my master's, or start a new one, or complete some kind of certification for something. What that might be I still don't know. Living in this very small town, and feeling more or less committed to staying here, and to trying to make a living here rather than commuting – this has severely limited my options, to say the least. To the point where I'm sort of starting to think maybe I ought to at least consider changing my mind about one or more of those prerequisites.

Because really, what am I gonna do for a living in a town like this? Especially given the additional requirements that I must work for a company that offers health insurance (since I am excluded from being able to buy my own as a self-employed person, even if I could afford to), AND that I must also avoid at all costs any endeavor that requires networking or work-related socializing of any kind? That last requirement, I suppose, I will need to ease up on, though it throws me into a sweat just to think of it.

Maybe all I need is a good girdle, or a really beautiful suit. Some kind of business-person disguise that I can put on and pretend to be the kind of person who loves to mix & mingle & talk shop with aftershave-scented acquaintances.

But back to the idea of school. There must be something I could do in this town that would be more interesting and satisfying than what I'm doing right now. Something that would allow the use of my mind, and that would not require that I become a totally different person – though I'm willing to work outside my comfort zone, within reason, understanding that the zone will tend to expand as I spend more time at its edges.

I could also consider working outside the valley again, though that would require me to buy and maintain a car, which means the new job would have to offer more than just a little bit more money than I'm making now. Public transit is not really an option; I looked up the route to a job I was considering in a town just ten miles from here, and found it would take me two hours and a four-mile bike ride each way just to get from my house to the office – a trip that takes about 20 minutes in a car. No wonder nobody uses the bus around here.

Nobody's said anything about hours being cut again at my main job, but the first few months after Christmas are historically the slowest of the whole year, and this has already been the worst year in the 130-year life of the company. I'm thinking I need to be ready to hit the ground running if necessary, or at least have the beginnings of some kind of plan.

One of these days I also need to figure out if there's any way to keep what's left of my investments from disappearing down the drain along with the rest of the sinking economy. Must call broker ....

Just rambling now.

Seeds

All is not doom and gloom, however – far from it. I'm enjoying all the fall things there are to do around here. Over the weekend we cleared out most of our summer garden and got the space ready for fall plantings, which will be carried out over the course of this week.

One of my favorite things to do when we clear the garden is to save seeds of all the things that were successful, to try again next year. Sometimes the plant that results bears little resemblance to the parent, but it's usually still good and always interesting, and even if it wasn't what I expected, I've still never been disappointed.

Some of the plants I'm saving seeds from this year: black sunflowers, sweet peas (four kinds), nasturtiums (two kinds), marigolds, winter squash, various melons, pole beans, peppers and basil. The basil seeds are especially fun to do, because they're so small and so intimately attached to their plants that you have to really get in there with your hands and fingers to get them out. I've ended up with a lot this year, about two tablespoons of seed, from three varieties: plain sweet Italian, a small-leafed Thai basil that a friend gave me for my birthday, and a beautiful purple one that I've never tried to grow from seed before.

There's also the ginormous tomato we tried on the recommendation of a friend. Mortgage Lifter, it's called. We put it in a standard 3-foot tomato cage and realized before a month had passed that we had deeply underestimated the size and vigor of this plant. It's easily the largest one I've ever grown, a full 8 feet across as it sprawled all over creation looking for support. The fruit is also large, tends to split (at least ours did), sweet-tasting with not much acidity, and super dense. None of those big open cavities full of seeds with this one – every slice is almost completely solid tomato, dark purplish-red and glistening with flavors ... Definitely one to try again, and since it's an heirloom and not a hybrid I'm hoping we'll get the same plant next year, for a change.

For fall we're not planning anything fancy: just some greens, garlic, onions, fava beans, Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers and cabbages, even though I've never had much luck with anything cruciferous, as the aphids seem to love them even more than I do. But it's been awhile since I've tried them, and I'm excited to try again.

As much as I've been complaining lately (if not here, then at least in my heart — a bad habit I need to replace with a better one – gratitude, for example), I have to say that one blessing of being underworked this year has been just having the flexibility to spend time around the house at times when normally I would be chained to my desk at work. I still take about 40 minutes for breakfast every morning, which I never used to do, and I actually cook myself something good and eat it outside all year round, unless it's really pouring.

This morning I also had time to spend working on some of those seeds, straightening up inside and outside, running a load of laundry, and then – at about 9:40 a.m., knowing I had to be at work by noon, I looked at a row of pears sitting on the windowsill and realized if I got right down to it I would still have time to make a little batch of pear-ginger butter as a surprise for Mr. A, who has heard all kinds of wistful stories about of my semi-prowess as an aspiring Depression-era farm wife (a la Olivia Walton, for example), but so far seen little evidence of it.

The pears are from our tree, and they are delicious. Because there were only four of them left (the tree itself is sort of a naturalized bonsai at only just about seven feet tall, and leads a rather rough and rugged existence out at the edge of the field where birds planted it), I ran out and picked two apples off our eastern-most apple tree, the one that is about to split all the way in half any day now but whose fruit is so crisp and sweet and tart I'm glad it's lasted long enough to contribute a few pieces to this combination.

I peeled them all but one (I like just a little bit of that gritty pear texture in there) and sliced them up, and then put in a totally exorbitant amount of fresh ginger and a little honey from the bees I kept at the community garden two years ago, and also a splash of brandy that Mr. A's friend gave us last Christmas, and it's all bubbling away on the stove right now and it makes me so happy to know that I've actually achieved almost everything I set out to do in my life so far, at least in terms of the day-to-day. I've enumerated these blessings plenty of times here already and don't have time to do so again, but I will be giving thanks for them and thinking of ways to share them on my ride to work in a few minutes – on this perfect gold and blue fall day that I'm so happy to be here for.

P.S. If anyone would like seeds for any of those things I mentioned, let me know in comments or email tina at tinarama.com. There's plenty.

Million dollar dog

Foxtail season is here, and it arrived this year with a bang – the sound of my jaw hitting the floor at the vet's office when I went to pick up my darling yesterday and learned that the total would be a whopping eight hundred dollars. True, I did also get just about everything else done that has been needing to get done for the last year or so (in addition to removing the foxtail from his sinuses we had his teeth cleaned and a little dental surgery performed, plus feet, butt, heartworm testing and meds, not to mention three different kinds of anesthesia, post-operative pain relief and not one but two kinds of antibiotic treatments) – so all in all I guess it shouldn't have been such a surprise.

Still. Eight hundred bucks. That hurt.

He's worth it, though. I know I must've said this before but I'll say it again: My feelings for this dog are the most clear and uncomplicated feelings I've never had about anyone in my life, and I've never had a millisecond of regret or a single second thought about him. That kind of clarity is so rare for me; usually I see so many different angles on every relationship.

We went for a long walk tonight and it was glorious. It got suddenly so hot this week, so unimaginably and unbearably hot (after just last week having to wear my winter long johns again and put an extra blanket on the bed), that I haven't done much of any kind of exercise for five days. Tonight as the sun went down though the air finally started to cool a bit and since the moon was out and the mosquitos were not, we walked up and down the road until it got too dark to see (no street lights out here).

What else? I'm still busier than I like to be at work, but I don't expect that will last much more than a few more weeks. We went to the community garden this morning and picked up three new varieties of tomato plants to try – Mortgage Lifter, Anna's Noir and Black Prince – plus a jalapeño, some red onion starts, a yarrow and a few more strawberry plants. I also went by my old garden plot and took some starts from a favorite old salvia of mine that is still growing there. I don't know what it's called but it gets about 6 feet tall and has the most beautiful sky-blue flowers – kind of unusual, and reasonably drought-tolerant, which is a must for any ornamental plant we grow on the property, since water's so scarce and expensive these days.

On week three of the leg-waxing experiment I finally broke down and waxed them again, on my own at home this time. The little hairs that were too short to get caught in the wax the first time were finally long enough to both drive me insane AND get caught in today's application of wax, which I applied rather messily while standing on a mat of old newspapers with my leg up under the spotlight above the kitchen sink. The results ... I can't tell yet, but I think they should be about as good as the salon. It is a very hot and sticky proposition to wax your own legs though, so if I do continue to go this route I might end up going back to the nice lady who did them last time.

I also forgot to mention that during week two, there was a period of several days during which my legs were itching so badly I thought I might scratch myself to death in my sleep before those little ingrown hairs finished growing out. If it happens again I might have to give up on waxing altogether. I am a little bit hair-obsessed, but I also have a very low tolerance for itching of any kind, especially when the whole point is supposed to be increased comfort and ease.

And finally: Yesterday I was walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store looking for the cottage cheese (the doctor-recommended meal for dogs coming out from under anesthesia, which makes them groggy and nauseous) when suddenly I heard a familiar song on the PA ... The Hustle! I don't know why but that song makes me so happy, and it was all I could do to stop myself from breaking out into a little dance right there in bulk foods. I kept walking, and when I turned a corner I saw two people dancing – and then in the next aisle, another person was getting down to the music! And then a little girl! And then – me! It was a great little community moment right there in the dairy aisle.

Just when things start getting comfortable

I should never write about – or even acknowledge, not even to myself! – how much I'm enjoying something, for example my new shorter work schedule, and some of the work I've been doing lately (the first work I've had the opportunity to do in several years that I feel really proud of and excited about), and even the little promotion and new job title I've just been given .... because it seems like the moment I mention a thing like that, something happens to mess it up.

In this case I guess it isn't exactly messed up, but I'm anxious and stressed anyway, to the point where I'm noticing myself consciously trying to Not think about this situation, even though it isn't actually a bad thing ... because every time I think of it, this wave of adrenaline gushes into my stomach and I feel like I might pass out.

What is happening is that I have an opportunity to do some exciting new work, and I'm trying to figure out how I can say "yes" to it and still keep doing the fun parts of my current job. I've received a formal offer from this new organization, and now based on that information I have to work out the logistics and decide what I want to do and how I'm going to present my request to my current boss .... which terrifies me because what if ... well, it just terrifies me because I'm always terrified of asking ... for ....

Actually this is interesting, because when I think about it I can't really identify exactly what I'm afraid of here. Afraid they'll fire me? But why would they do that? They just promoted me! Afraid they'll say no, and I'll have to choose one job or the other – neither of which is really enough all by itself, since both are currently only part time? Afraid I won't get what I want?

This anxious, sort of sick-to-the-stomach feeling is so familiar to me, and I hate it. I lived with it for years, literally years – pretty much the entire decade of my thirties – and I don't want to give any more of my time to it! Inside my body it feels dizzy, sick, terrified. Like I can't think. And in terms of my way of being and acting in the world, what it always seems to bring up more than anything is just this kind of blind paralysis – like I desperately want NEED to jettison everything that is not absolutely essential to life – basically, everything but air, food, water and possibly shelter – and dig into my current position like one of those crusty crustacean creatures (barnacles?) that cling to the edges of tidepools, the ones that will let you tear their shells and bodies into pieces before they'll let you pry them off their rock.

What I want right now is to call up these new people (they're not even new, actually – I've known several of them for years) and tell them sorry, changed my mind, can't do it, good-bye, please go away now and stop scaring me! And then go back to my job on Monday as if nothing had ever happened.

A few years ago I think that's just what I would have done. Now, though ... It's crazy, because at this moment I really feel almost as if I could actually throw up from anxiety. And yet I know I'm going to go ahead and try to do this new thing.

In my imagination, I see some vague scene of crashing and burning, people pounding on tables and yelling at me, my coveted projects ripped from my grasp and awarded to my nemesis (over whom I've finally, only just in the last week, been given some authority – which I really don't want to give up so soon!) as punishment for daring to ask for more than is being offered .... I see Me, crying and drooling, begging to be taken back ....

At our second meeting, one of the interviewers pronounced me "wholesome, gentle-mannered, and well-spoken." She meant it as a good thing, but all I heard was "weak, weak, weak."

Why do I get so scared about stuff like this? This process of working myself into a tizzy over pending changes or decisions is also very familiar – the deliberate dramatization of something that is not innately dramatic, as a way of immobilizing or protecting myself from having to take actions I don't feel prepared to take. So passive, so avoidant. So embarrassing, to be such a person ... aren't we all supposed to be able to boldly and confidently go for the gusto, taking the bull by the horns, driving our own destiny, etc.?

Anyway. It's good to know the drama is optional – I'm glad I remembered that. I am going to spend some time tomorrow calming myself down and writing lists, sorting out all the variables, and hopefully coming to a clear understanding of what it is I actually would like to have happen here. And then, a plan for how to ask for it.

Even if I totally botch the negotiation and end up homeless in a ditch, just having made the effort will have been a step forward.

In other news, I got a new little section of garden raked out today and planted seeds for sweet peas (the flowers), various assorted lettuces, watermelon radishes, spinach, rainbow chard, cinnamon basil, Italian large-leaf basil, bok choy, sorrel, cilantro, and several different kinds of nasturtiums. It's still kind of cold, and maybe a little early for the basil, but I enjoyed being out there. I cut chicken wire "slip covers" for each of the beds, because Tater can never resist digging in freshly turned soil. I hope the wire will be enough to keep his sweet little paws away.

We also transplanted (a couple of weeks ago) an 8-foot Japanese maple out of a half barrel and into the ground. It's all leafed out now and really beautiful – bright green star-shaped leaves with little magenta flowery looking things that might turn into seeds ... I can't remember what this particular tree does, but will be keeping an eye on them. I'm underplanting it with bok choy. Not traditional, but I think it will be pretty.