Signs of Life

At the rate The Squirrel (above) naps, she’s the most political dog in the world.

True to my last post, and with the idea of vacations and taking a break on my mind (see my last post), I headed up the block to TeaSource for a cup of afternoon tea.

While I was en route, a car drove past with the following bumper sticker: “The most radical thing a woman can do is rest when she is tired.”

How apropos!

And what a great perspective: resting as a political act, as taking a stand against our culture of perpetual inertia and constant productivity. Napping isn’t just for the tired anymore! It’s the pursuit of the true reformer and activist.

So, good citizens — women and men — take a stand against being overworked and harried! Do something radical! Take a nap!

I spent a week on the North Shore in April. (Photo credit: Rambling Traveler; licensed under the Creative Commons)

Blogging is blogging because it’s casual, relevant and frequent. As in, it happens regularly. As in, twice a week. Or once a week. Or several times a day.

Recently I’ve fallen short in the frequency department. Here’s how I fell off the wagon: a holiday weekend (July 4th) hit, followed by a day or two of vacation, followed by a busy time in the production schedule when I was back at work, followed up by a dismaying few days of underinspiration and general lack of interesting things to say (one could argue that this period is not yet over… ahem).

So today, with a little more time in my schedule, my natural instinct was to start feeling guilty about my lapse. But lately I’ve been working to fight my natural propensity for guilt, so I began to look for a positive perspective on my long stretch of silence — and I found it in the importance of vacations.

Now, granted, I was not vacating the office the whole time I was asleep in the blogosphere. But the holiday weekend did kick off my extended stretch, and summer is one of the classic vacation times. So what better time to think about the necessity of vacations.

In March, we ran a story on the critical importance of vacations — and how our culture doesn’t recognize or support the regular taking of them (read No-Vacation Nation here). In short, the story recounted how vacations are necessary not just for health and happiness, but also for success and productivity. Yet we Americans take far too few of them.

Another seminal point in the story is that when many of us DO take vacation, we take some work — maybe a laptop or our blackberry — with us. We don’t ever truly vacate from our duties and responsibilities.

We’re always connected — dizzyingly so — with our work, our to-do lists, our daily tasks, our online audience, be it comprised of one reader (Hi, Aunt!) or 100,000. We rarely, if ever, fully step out of our daily routines.

Yes, it’s in our cultural DNA to work round the clock — our country was built on the idea of hard work and ritual sacrifice. But it’s in the best interest of our health to take a break now and then. And not just by turning off the phone for an evening. We need to really disconnect, get away, take more than a long weekend. These longer breaks give us the opportunity both to reconnect with our true selves (who we are as human beings as opposed to human doings) as well as with family, health, dreams, goals, sleep, leisure, and joy.

I stumbled across a recent New York Times article on the exhaustion (sometimes deadly) of round the clock blogging — and, indeed, it would seem that, as the author Matt Richtel suggests, 24/7 blogging and continual connectivity is the 21st Century sweatshop. The digital dawn has made our lives easier in many respects, but it also asks us to pay for that ease with our time and near constant attention.

And while I’m not in any way comparing myself to those fevered 24/7 bloggers — hardly! — I think with the completion of this post I’ll take a mini-vacation break for tea and a bowl of raspberries in whole milk. And you, having just read this post, should turn off the computer and do the same.

My dogs own my deck.

At my house, the arrival of summer means a spontaneous doubling of living space: my deck becomes the brightly-lit reading, dining and crafting room. My backyard fire pit becomes a second kitchen. My clothesline becomes my de facto dryer. My front steps become my phone booth (real classy like, I know). And on and on.

But I’m not the only one. My dogs are also outside with a vengeance, barking at defenseless older people as they walk by and scavenging for maple tree helicopters and rocks as the mood strikes. They’ve also claimed the deck chairs as their own (see photographic evidence, above).

But that brings me to the matter at hand: Sharing the backyard with Spot isn’t always a seamless endeavor, especially if the human family members want a garden and the canine family members treat the yard like an all-you-can-eat-buffet. There’s also the matter of safety for both pets and humans.

So here’s some advice on how to have a beautiful backyard/extra summer living space that’s also fido-friendly — and safe for all:

1. Say NO to pesticides — Cancer risk is much higher for pets in homes where pesticides are regularly applied to the lawn. Remember, they are putting all four paws and often their noses directly into whatever goes on the grass. They’re also bringing the toxins inside with them (and so are you if you step in the lawn) where the toxins become dangerous indoor dust that everyone in the family breathes in (and even more is getting tracked onto furniture or the bed if you let your dogs lounge in those spots). Avoid chemical lawn treatments and embrace natural weed control instead, including:

• Corn gluten meal — inhibits seed germination and is a pre-emergent weed killer. Apply in early spring before weeds come up.
• Mulch — mulches help control weeds naturally, but avoid using cocoa bean mulch in any area where dogs have free rein. Cocoa is toxic for dogs when ingested.
• Rock gardens — Rocks as mulch are also pretty, and are generally safe for Spot. But if your dog is a serious backyard grazer, avoid them — especially if the rocks are small and your dog is small (big things happen fast in small intestinal tracks). Eating too many rocks can cause intestinal blockage and, in some cases, death.
• Let your yard go natural — this is perhaps the healthiest (and simplest and cheapest) option for your personal health, for your pet’s health and for the environment.

2. Un-treat your lumber — Treated lumber is loaded with nasty chemicals, including arsenic, that can leach into the dirt where Fido digs and sometimes snacks. Stick with untreated cedar for garden borders or fencing.

3. Fix-up burned grass naturally — The backyard doubles as your dog’s bathroom and you can often tell exactly where they go #1 because of the burned grass. Apply Gypsum to the to the affected areas to help minimize burns. You can also try putting a little brown sugar on the affected area and watering. This is said to help attract worms, who in turn help aerate the soil and improve drainage. (Note of caution: dogs may want to snack on lawn care additives that smell like, or are, food. So apply before a big rain or water well to keep them from grazing on your soil amendments.)

4. Plant dense — Dogs have bad depth perception and can’t always see single plantings (which means they are more likely to tear through them). Plant dense to help Spot see what’s coming as he tears around the yard. (Note, this will not help if your dog is simply naughty.) Another bonus: dense plantings naturally inhibit weeds.

5. Get a motion activated sprinkler — Most dogs hate getting wet, so a great way to keep dogs out of backyard gardens is to put a motion activated sprinkler in the bed and wait for Spot to saunter over and lift his leg. He’ll get soaked and saunter off and your garden will get a nice mist. Kill two birds with one stone!

My free cup didn’t have whip cream. Sigh. Maybe I’d have drunk it if it did.

(Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

Having woken up late (per the usual), skipped breakfast and hair washing (sorry, aesthetics), I was flying to work one day last week when I realized that I wouldn’t make it through my morning meeting if I didn’t get something to eat.

So I breezed into an upscale chain bakery that happened to be en route.

Me to Cashier: I’ll have one of those buttery, quiche-y, egg-and-spinach-y things to go.

Cashier: Comin’ up! Would you like a cup of coffee with that? We’re giving away a small cup of coffee with the purchase of buttery, quiche-y, egg-and-spinach-y things!!!

Me (desperate for a cup of coffee, but having just spied the stack of Styrofoam to-go cups from which, on (health) principle, I do not drink): No, thanks. I’m okay.

Cashier (undeterred): C’mon it’s free! I’ll get you a cup!!

Me (lying): No, no. I’ve had too much this morning already. But, thanks.

Cashier: Nonsense! There’s no such thing as too much caffeine — and it’s free! Here! Here’s your free cup! Take it, it’s free!

Me: . . .

Cashier (beaming): . . .

This free cup of coffee should have made my morning, right? Been a bright spot in an otherwise routine day? I mean, what kind of loser gets depressed when they get something for free?

Well, I was depressed. So by my own logic I concluded I was a loser and just got on with my commute. But later I thought about it more, and something dawned on me: right from the start, my free cup of coffee was far from free.

First off, the cup was made of polystyrene foam, a dangerous synthetic material that has been known to leech toxic materials into the beverages it contains (polystyrene contains benzene, a known human carcinogen). The stuff also takes over 900 years to biodegrade and causes starvation in marine wildlife (polystyrene is one of the most ubiquitous marine pollutants). What’s more, producing polystyrene is a huge energy hog. That adds up to a pretty steep environmental and personal health cost for a “free” cup of coffee.

Next, there was the cost to my newly clean car. After I poured the coffee on the grass, the cup was about to become free-floating garbage in my beleaguered Subaru. This seems like a small cost in the grand scheme of things, I know. But stuff adds up, and it takes a psychic toll (especially if, like me, your car tends to serve manifold functions, including purse/lunch cart/storage unit/roving Dumpster). This cup = more stuff = more psychic toll. (The high number of consumer products produced today also takes an environmental toll. Check out the great interactive video, The Story of Stuff, for a clear-eyed picture of the life cycle of stuff.)

Another cost of my free cup of coffee? My annoyance at my inability to refuse it. I felt like I’d been forced into the free coffee, but in reality, most cases of feeling forced into something are really cases of us having said yes despite our wish to say no. So then I became annoyed with myself for having not stuck to my guns and said no. Then I became doubly annoyed that such a simple thing should be so hard to say no to, and then I became triply annoyed that boundaries and limitations and being clear are such hard things to master. I’m an adult, for goodness sake. How hard is it to set a boundary with the bakery counter guy?

I’ve read that getting better at saying no takes practice (read more on how to say no here), and that the best place to start practicing is in low-stakes settings like, say, a bakery. Sigh. I guess I need more practice. So I’m heading back to the bakery tomorrow, but just in case I still can’t refuse, I’m bringing my own refillable mug. Then, at least, good coffee won’t go to waste.

Dirt just feels so right.

Happy Friday! We’ve got some great entries this week for our Small, Good Things appreciation list.

Anne wrote in with a wonderful, amazing list of small goodnesses! Here are her top seven:

1. Dirt — “Today, for example, I was out planting my garden, and the feel of the warm, soft dirt beneath my bare feet made me so happy. So, add DIRT to the list!”

2. Going barefoot — “Not to mention how exciting it was to be outside in shorts and barefeet and be warm for a change! Hooray for SPRING!”

3. A pillow that’s just the right balance between firm and soft, fluffy and cozy.

4. The sound of songbirds chirping outside the window in the morning.

5. The joy of finding a fantastic new tune on iTunes.

6. The excitement of finding an e-mail from an old friend in your Inbox.

7. And of course, my favorite: being outside at just the right time and place to catch a spectacular sunset, marveling at the array of colors and feeling grateful for the gift of eyesight and the time to savor that moment!

And Jen concurs that (8.) dog lips are good stuff. Her dog, Zoey, agreed to pose for the camera to prove the point:

Zoey sleeps, er, poses for the camera.

And my one addition this week is (9.) the wind. A strong-but-not-too-strong wind feels so cleansing somehow. And the rustling sound it makes in the trees sounds like the ocean (which is such a treat for those of us who guard America’s Inner Shores).

As an editor, many newly published books cross my desk. Here are a few worthy recent additions:

New Good Food: Shopper’s Pocket Guide to Organic, Sustainable and Seasonal Whole Foods by Margaret M. Wittenberg (Ten Speed, 2007) — When this book first crossed my desk, I thought, “Well, whole foods are whole foods, right? What else do I need to know? I can already tell the difference between a squash (whole) and a Twinkie (slightly less than whole). But this book has a treasure trove of valuable information. It gives all the nitty-gritty details on identifying, preparing, and storing whole foods staples.

Need to know if preparing French green lentils differs from preparing Spanish pardina lentils (or mung beans or split peas on yellow soybeans)? This book’s got the answers in an easy-to-refer-to chart. Can’t keep Soba and Udon noodles straight? Check the book. Want to try baking with ultra-nutritious Teff flour? Book’ll tell you how it’s done.

Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying by David Bach (Broadway, 2008) — Bach has authored a series of “finish rich” books, but this one focuses on how to build your wealth while also saving the earth. While the tips struck me as more useful for befriending the earth than bolstering the wallet, they’ll help out with both.

What I liked most about the book was the “Go Green Action Steps” Bach provides in each section. They direct readers to websites (primarily) for more information or getting involved. All the websites I visited from this section were actually really helpful (so many sites are not). And, call me old-fashioned, but I like gleaning new websites from books or print magazines and newspapers instead of someplace else online.

Also, the book has beautiful pictures and is well designed. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, but it’s fun to peruse something pretty.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (Penguin, 2008) — This book is great, great, great. Pollan chronicles the modern history of American food, which sounds much less interesting than it is. What’s happened to our food system in the last 40 years is the stuff of Shakespearean tragedy. Pollan exposes the many sins committed in the name of food and then gives guidelines for eating well in the modern age.

Even if you’re not a stitch interested in food, I recommend this book for it’s pure phraseological beauty. Pollan’s prose is bewitching, with sentences that are hearty, soul-enriching comfort food and whipped (grass-fed) butter all at once.

These happy-making annuals are headed to my garden.

In continuation of my effort to re-brand Fridays as Small Good Things Recognition Day, here are some small goodnesses from this week.

Jamie commented last week that her one of her small, great joys is sitting outside reading a book. Hooray to that! And now that it’s spring, the weather is perfect.

MizFit, who I just found out is buying me a Luminous Virtual Window for my windowless office — ahem — wrote to say that her dog’s chiclet-looking hilarious teeth (MizFit, will you send a picture? Pretty please?!) and her daughter’s tiny hands as they complete a task both make her happy. Indeed, isn’t watching a child navigate the world anew such a brilliant and wonderful thing! And don’t get me started on canine-generated happinesses. We’ll be here all day.

Here a few other small happinesses for this Friday:

1. The impending holiday weekend — The Sundays in long weekends are primo days: you get Saturday to unwind and Monday to recover. Sunday is just full-throttle relaxation. Hooray!

2. Lilacs in bloom — Oh, the sweet smell and gentle colors. It’s goodness on branches.

3. The sense of national unity engendered by American Idol — Culturally and politically, we’re a pretty divided country. But we all admire David Cook’s voice and want to pinch David Archuleta’s cheeks. I say hooray to anything that can bring about national consensus (albeit pop cultural).

4. Caffeine — Bless you, caffeine. You have gotten me through another week.

5. Bight colored annuals — Spring has sprung!

If a small, good thing knocks on your door this week, let me know. Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

I was wheeling around Target last night loading up on dental floss and water filters when I was seduced (per the usual) by this season’s Go International designer line, Rogan Gregory for Target (read about some the shopping mania that happened when the collection first hit shelves here). I grabbed a few shirts and a dress, tried them on, fell in love, begged the better half to let me allot some funds to the “necessary development of my work wardrobe” (ha ha), and then promptly tried them all on again in front of the mirror at home. It was then, as I was simultaneously cutting off the tags, that I read the labels and realized the clothes were all made from 100% organic cotton!

Holy crap! I’d just bought reasonably-priced organic clothes that had been so mainstreamed — that were just so much a part of the store vernacular — that I didn’t even know they were organic until I got home. How cool is that?!

And did I mention how well-designed the line is? If you’re not already at Target (because, let’s face it, who isn’t there most of the time anyway?), get thee to your nearest outlet and savor the democratization of organic attire!

My recent Target trip also led to the discovery that they’re carrying one of my favorite, all-natural body care product lines, Weleda. I can’t say enough about Weleda’s products — from how yummy they smell, to how wonderful they feel, to how pristine and ecologically-sound their ingredients are.

Learn more about Weleda, and read a comprehensive and detailed list of their all-natural ingredients at their website. Or, next time you’re grabbing toilet paper at the Targ, go nuts with the Weleda testers. You’ll be in an all-natural sensory heaven.

I also — happily — spied Dr. Bronner’s on the Target shelves. Those of you who are familiar with “Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One Soap” already know that this soap is the best thing going.

Not only is it all-natural, ecological, pure-Castile (which simply means that it’s vegetable oil-based as opposed to animal fat-based) soap that you can use to do everything from wash the dishes to scour the bath tub to brush your teeth, it’s also now certified USDA organic (all the liquid and bar soaps are at least).

Best of all, though, is Dr. Bronner’s package labeling which, in the densest type ever put on a bottle of soap, urges us, in so, so, so, so, sooooo many words to, ahem, “realize our transcendent unity across religious and ethnic divides.” It’s awesome and, if reading it doesn’t make you feel instantly, transcendently unified, it will make you giggle. And give you cataracts.

I’m not in the habit of promoting consumption, BUT I’m all for the democratization of high-quality, authentically natural products becoming more mainstream. Props to Target for bringing more good, healthy stuff our way!

Dolly brings happiness wherever she goes.

Some psychologists have hypothesized that we’re often so busy looking for the “big” happiness in our lives (you know, that abiding feeling of contentment, success, fulfillment and security that will make everything okay forever but which never arrives? Yeah, that one.), that we miss all the little happinesses that accrue every day, and, in the process, further erode our chances of feeling happy.

Nasty cycle.

So I think Fridays should be Small Happiness Appreciation Day, when we list out and celebrate the small, good things that brighten our lives beneath the radar.

I’ll start.

1. Burt’s Bees Lip Gloss (color: cocoa) — It’s shiny and dewy and all-natural. Plus, it’s cheap and whenever I put it on I feel like a movie star. (Pretend you don’t know that Burt’s Bees is now owned by Clorox.)

2. Cedar Summit Chocolate Milk drunk straight from the bottle — This incomparable chocolate milk comes in an old-fashioned glass bottle. Every time I take a big swig from the bottle, I am filled with pure, kid-like joy. (Also, if you drink Cedar Summit before bed, you will dream the primary-colored, Golden-Retriever-filled dreams of a third-grader all night long.)

3. Chai — Chai tea manages to simultaneously taste like your rural country home, Nepal, and Thanksgiving. I like mine spicier and earthier than most commercial brands (too sweet for me). If you do too, you should try Mischief Maker Chai. A mug of Mischief Maker warms the soul.

4. Comedy that makes comedians laugh — I love watching professional comedians crack up. These are comedy pros, and when something amuses them, it doubly amuses me. Watch Ellen Degeneres bust up while she talks to Gladys from Texas (if you’re pressed for time, just go to minute 2:20 and watch for 30 seconds).

5. Dog lips — Enough said.

6. Dogs with pirate casts — Ditto.

7. Tulips — They mean spring. And spring means warmer weather and sun. And sun means I feel human again.

Photo taken this morning in my very own garden!

8. Watching Halvo do those crazy pull-ups with the extra weights — I’m not so much jealous as I am in awe. The human body can do this? Wow. And, again: Wow.

9. Dolly Parton — Dolly Parton is an angel sent from heaven. Burn a CD of some of her greatest hits today and listen to it on your commute home. When you get to Eagle When She Flies, crank the volume, roll down the windows and sing along. I challenge you not to cry (the good kind of cry) by the end of the song. Put song on repeat until you’re parked in your driveway.

What small good things make you happy on a Friday? I’m going to gather ideas for next Friday’s post.

Prince Fielder slugs it out in the land of bratwurst.

I’m talented at a good many things, but I’ve only truly mastered one particular skill: resistance.

I resist change. I resist exercise. I resist giving up chocolate milk and cookies (you can read more about my lingering bad habits here). I resist following my creative impulses, and going to bed earlier, and getting up earlier, and giving up spending so much money on ornate garden trellises (don’t ask).

So when I read that Prince Fielder, the 265-pound first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers, overcame his resistance to change and became a vegetarian (he’s the first “out vegetarian” in baseball), I was impressed and inspired.

Here’s a guy deeply immersed in sports culture, playing baseball in the state where bratwurst was born, saying no to meat. The article I spotted, “”Meat is Out at Fielder’s Plate,” was all about the resistance he’s now encountering from tailgating fans, who started shouting gems like “C’mon Prince, eat some brats — sauté them in a little Miller Lite!” at games. Fielder is fighting whatever internal resistance he may have had plus the wild-eyed resistance of hundreds of thousands of hardcore fans.

Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, says that, more or less, the way to win the battle with resistance is to show up for it — every day. Say you finally want to write that novel: Then everyday at a certain time, you pull up a chair and just start writing. It doesn’t have to be good or even coherent. It doesn’t matter if you’re idealess that morning, or sick, or hungover, or it’s the first day of Macy’s White Sale, or your mother-in-law is coming over later and you’re so filled with dread that you “just can’t do it.” You sit down and write something anyway, crap or not. And that, says Pressfield, is how it gets done.

In short, overcoming resistance takes presence and perseverance. And if we’re lucky enough to be able to persevere and overcome resistance without mobs of people shouting, “Beer brats are the breakfast of champions!” so much the easier.

I’m currently working on trying to go to bed a bit earlier and wake up earlier. I’m proud to report that this morning I was out of bed 15 minutes earlier than usual! Sure, it was because my one of my dogs threw up and I was on cleaning duty, but I’m still taking credit.

PS: Fielder became a vegetarian after reading about the inhumane treatment of chicken and cattle and getting, in his words, “totally grossed out.” That’s what happened to me nearly a decade ago when I gave up meat. But now my reasons have expanded to include the environment. The production of meat requires a huge number of resources and energy, and it involves intensive and unsustainable agricultural practices that promote monoculture crops. According to 2006 United Nations report, meat production is considered one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide. So if you were looking for one more good reason for giving up meat, now you can add “saving the world” to your list.