Signs of Life

I love the Minnesota State Fair, which is weird, because, in isolation, every individual component of the Fair is one that I despise.

I mean, please! The large crowds, the transfats, the smell of livestock. And I swear you can get Hepatitis C just by looking at the carnival rides.

Yet, inexplicably, the Fair is one of my favorite events of the year. I cannot explain why. Maybe it is the unbridled conviviality. Maybe it is the late August days, languid without being melancholy (a rare feat, I find). Maybe it is the fantastic crop art (It really IS amazing); or the 90-pound butter sculptures of Princess Kay of the Milky Way; or the prize-winning banana breads and jams and flower arrangements and pumpkins and you name it. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the deep-fried pickles on a stick, though I wouldn’t know since I would never eat something so unhealthy.

Ahem.

What do you find inexplicably happy-making? Whatever it is, I say make it a small (or big!) part of your day today. The hectic pace and perma-stress of modern life often crowds out life’s giddy little joys. So before the more serious and scholarly mindset of autumn rolls around — and we roll back our sleeves and set our minds to big projects and prepare for winter  — sneak out of your obligations for an afternoon and do something giddy and silly and wonderful. You won’t regret it.

And if your indulgence happens to be the same as mine, I’ll meet you at Sweet Martha’s cookie stand. But I’m not splitting my bucket of cookies. You’ll have to get your own! (Not, of course, that I would know what those unhealthy cookies taste like. I mean, please!).

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!

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.

Decluttering is good feng shui.

In the spring, I clean. I start the process with visions of an immaculate, nearly empty Zen-like home (Interestingly, the soon-to-be-clean house in my imagination also has all-new, sleek and modern furniture; a new set of nonshedding, nondrooling pets; and, for the first time in my adult life, sophisticated curtains not purchased at Ikea), but I end the process overwhelmed, half done, and hiding in the garden to avoid having to lug any more crap to the Dumpster.

Then, last week, I read the old classic Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston (Broadway, 1999) in search for some last minute motivation — and boy did I find it. Kingston devotes a section of the book to calculating how much clutter can cost you financially (what’s a better motivator than the bottom line?).

Herewith, from Kingston:

What does it actually cost you to keep the stuff? Sometimes when all other reasoning has failed, it is the simple financial mathematics that brings people to their senses about their clutter.

Let’s do some sums. Go into each room of your home and estimate the percentage of space that is taken up by things you rarely or never use. Be very honest with yourself as you do this process. If you want the blatant truth, include everything you don’t absolutely love or haven’t used in the last year…In an average-sized home, you may end up with a list that looks something like this:

1. Entrance/foyer — 5 percent
2. Sitting room — 10 percent
3. Dining room — 10 percent
4. Kitchen — 30 percent
5. Bedroom 1 — 40 percent
6. Bedroom 2 — 25 percent
7. Junk room — 100 percent
8. Bathroom — 15 percent
9. Basement — 90 percent
10. Attic — 100 percent
11. Garden shed — 60 percent
12. Garage — 80 percent
Total Clutter 565 percent

Now divide the total by the number of areas.

565 percent divided by 12 areas = average 47 percent junk per room!

So, in this example, the cost of storing clutter works out to a staggering 47 percent of the cost of the rent or mortgage for your home.

Needless to say, I have been in the basement emptying old college papers and grade-school art projects nonstop for a week.

My everyday routines are so deeply ingrained that I almost never think of them as choices.

For example, I don’t always put a slice of lime in my water glass, then fill the glass approximately 1/3 the way with star-shaped ice cubes, then top the glass off with filtered water, then chomp down all the ice, and only then drink the water because it’s what I choose to do. No, no. I do it because that’s how water is drunk, of course!

The severity of my “routine blindness” caught up with me the other day in the grocery store. I’d been watching a podcast of the irrepressible Michael Pollan (a food journalist and one of my personal heroes) lecture at Stanford about his new book In Defense of Food and about the reductive nature of “nutritionism,” the notion that individual nutrients and vitamins are the healthiest part of a food and, hence, can be isolated and repackaged in bottles as “Vitamin A” or “Beta Carotene” or what-have-you with the same healthy effets.

As EL has covered (“The Whole Thing” from the March 2008 issue), and Pollan and others continue to report, nutrients in isolation don’t appear to do our bodies any health favors.

Tara Parker-Pope writing in The New York Times (“The Case for Real Food,” November 5, 2007) summarizes the research findings of David R. Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health on the failings of nutritionism.

“Dr. Jacobs believes that nutrition science needs to consider the effects of “food synergy,” the notion that the health benefits of certain foods aren’t likely to come from a single nutrient but rather combinations of compounds that work better together than apart.”

So, anyway, with all this on my mind, I was cruising the aisles at The Wedge and thinking “Gosh, I need to eat more fruits and vegetables.” Yet my next actual thought was: “Well, crap! Now how in the world am I going to do that?!”

I’m so set in my ways — even at the grocery store — that it didn’t even dawn on me that the answer to eating more vegetables was, ahem, buying more vegetables.

Instead of moving through the produce section and grabbing what I always grab (bananas, apples, limes, mandarins, garlic, onions, cauliflower, carrots and parsley), I could grab — gasp! — anything else I wanted. Lettuce? Sure! Cabbage? Of course! Broccoli? Yes! Fennel? Why not! I could even grab more of what I already grab. (Sometimes big discount stores put limits on that week’s specials — No more than six supercheap and really sugary juice packs per customer, please! But no one’s going to stop me from buying 10 bunches of carrots if I want to!)

So mechanized was I at the grocery store that I’d stopped even seeing other fruits, veggies and foods. I’ve been going to the same co-op three times a week for 6 years and last week I had to ask where the scallions were (pretty embarrassing).

So now I’m trying to go to the grocery store at least once a week at a time when I’m not in a hurry. I make sure the dogs have been walked and I’ve gotten a handle on household chores and any other pesky life detritus, and then when I go to the store I’m able to just order the world’s best chai from the deli and then leisurely stroll around and really, really SEE the foods I’d been ignoring in my zombie-like state and everyday haste.

It’s actually made grocery shopping fun, and I’ve made some marvelous-tasting discoveries — crisp new varieties of olives (not just the Kalamatas I always get), tangy Miso, brisk pink and gray sea salts with delightfully nuanced flavors. And the bonus? It’s healthier, too.

Here’s a picture of my dogs cuddling. They have nothing to do with this post. They’re just cute.

A friend once asked my better half if it was tough to live with me sometimes because I’m, like, so “into health.” What if you just want to eat grizzly nachos and drink soda all day one day, the friend asked? Does Laine let you?

First of all, I try never to force anyone to conform to my health habits, such as they are (more on this in a second) because (1) there’s nothing attractive about a pedant, (2) much as I secretly believe otherwise, I’m not the boss of anyone’s life choices, and (3), and perhaps most significantly, being preachy and dictatorial isn’t effective. In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

Of course, I wish everyone on earth shared my worldview on health and eating, on the environment, on what constitutes quality TV programming, etc. But I’m not going to win them over by being preachy. Instead I just try to do what I think is important and what makes me feel happy and healthy, and I try to have no expectations for anyone but me. And if, along the way, someone says, “Wow, that olive and feta quinoa bake didn’t taste as bad as I expected!” so much the better.

But this brings me to what I really wanted to talk about: the expectations we have for certain “types” of people, say the health conscious, or athletes, or hard driving executives, or stay at home parents, or artists, or University professors, or teenagers, or you-name-it. The type of expectations some people have about “health nut” me.

Now we’ve all read those sweet little essays about the NFL player who’s passionate about ancient Greek poetry or the top neurosurgeon who listens to Kelly Clarkson everyday on his commute, and we know all about how we should dispense with our preconceived notions and be more open-minded blah blah, so I’m not going to repeat that discussion here.

What I’m going to do instead is go straight to the fun bit, the “dirty secrets revealed!” portion of every “preconceived notion” story. That’s why we read them in the first place, right? To revel in the contradictions. To match them up with our own. To affirm this person’s humanity and subsequently our own. To delight in our shared imperfection. It’s like that time I read that the Queen of England eats breakfast cereal every morning out of an old Tupperware container. More than just being titillated, I (and the whole of England) was overcome by the sheer humanity of this detail.

I’m not the Queen of England and I won’t even pretend to pretend that anyone would interested in knowing how I eat breakfast cereal (or anything else about me for that matter), but I am, as Desi’s friend suggested “into health” — someone who eats mostly vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds; who eschews corn syrup and white rice; who’s an environmentally-conscious grow-my-own-food-and-buy-only-second-hand-clothes sort — which adds up to a whole set of expectations worth shattering. Hence:

The Secrets of a Health Magazine Editor Revealed!

Here are some of my less healthy habits:

1. I eat cookies like it’s my job. I can resist ice cream, brownies, cupcakes, etc. But stick a plate of cookies in front of me and I’m like a 4 year old. I will eat them until I’m sick.

2. I love TV. I believe TV is one of life’s purest pleasures and I’ll watch it before I’ll engage in any number of other pursuits. I know full well that I could probably spend my TV-watching time in healthier and more fulfilling ways, but I won’t give it up. They’ll have to pry my TV out of my cold, dead hands.

3. I do not go to the dentist twice a year like I’m supposed to. I usually go once a year. Maybe.

4. How do I love thee, caffeine? Let me count the ways….. The stuff makes me jittery, uncomfortable and agitated, and I know it. I drink it anyway. I love its boldness, it’s electricity, its snap and richness. I love the way it makes me feel even when it makes me feel bad.

5. Point of sale displays in big-box stores were designed specifically for me. I know these things are meant to sucker me in and I know I should be savvier (and, if I do say so myself, I’m fairly responsible with my money). But plop me in the check-out line at Target, get me started perusing the POS display and suddenly I realize that a tube of Carmex, a few packs of triple A batteries and a discount DVD of Corky Romano are life necessities. How did I ever live without these things? Seriously, I have no idea.

So there you have it. My point with all of this… well, okay, I don’t have much of one other that I love these types of stories and so I assume others must too. Though, also, I think part of living well is embracing our humanity, our contradictions, our whole lives. Otherwise we can wind up feeling compartmentalized and ashamed about who we are, and that just ain’t right. Sure, we should always be on a path to improvement and healthier living and all of that, but meanwhile, I’m proud to say that I’m a TV-addicted, caffeine-swilling, cookie-devouring impulse shopper. And hooray for that.

No wonder I eat some of this every 10 minutes. It’s addictive.

Laine’s garden in happier [read: warmer] times.

I’ve been meaning to put up a blog post for more than a week now, but I’ve been so busy working on an EL story on time and how we need more of it that I haven’t had the time. (There’s a great story (not mine) on making time for vacations in the current issue of EL.)

Beyond the inherent irony here, how depressing is this? It’s sad to preach something I can’t manage to practice. More than that, even, my time crunch also makes me want to utter (in complete earnest) one of the most cliched phrases on earth: “I wish there were more hours in the day!” How did I become the cliché I preach against?

I guess the better question is: how could I have avoided it? Time shortages are a stalwart of today’s culture. It’s almost a badge of pride to continually be working. Even we who preach the importance of “making time” routinely ignore the message. “Yes, yes,” we say. “Of course we should all take vacations! And put the computer away at 5:30 pm and focus exclusively on family, or leisure, or creative pursuits! Even I’m going to do it, too…. right after I finish writing this article on why making time for our lives is important. Don’t wait up…”

To break this mold — at least for right now on this Thursday afternoon at 1:46pm — here’s a list (rather than lengthy posts) of all are the interesting things I’ve been meaning to blog about if only I had the time. Probably works out better for you, too. Who has time to read all this stuff anyway?

1. If you are sick, for goodness sake, stay home. A recent New York Times story reports on the benefits to companies, employees, and (somewhat counterintuitively) our own productivity, when we actually stay home from work when we’re sick. Well, sure, you’re thinking, isn’t that what people already do? Perhaps some of us, but not everyone. In fact, recent studies have shown an increased trend in “presenteeism,” or the insistence on showing up at work or other events no matter the degree of one’s illness. (On a sidenote that will further reveal how disconnected I am from what I write about: I am in the office today and I’m sick. What kind of crackpot am I? To my credit (if I get any at this point), I was out sick the last two days and felt better this morning, came in and then felt worse all over again. Co-workers, I’m sorry. I’m going back home when I finish this post.)

2. Good food is thrilling. I interviewed celebrity chef Nathan Lyon this week. I’ve never met someone more excited about fresh, local food. Lyon is like a human mash note to good eating. (I had a work meeting directly following our interview. While I was in the meeting taking notes on my laptop, he sent me an email with a picture of the honey lemon tea soufflés he whipped up right after we got off the phone.) A side note: he offers some really useful tips and techniques on cooking basics on the website for his Discovery Health TV show A Lyon in the Kitchen.

3. I’m going to join a CSA this year. I’m giddy at the prospect of all that fresh produce showing up at my doorstep once a week. While I was looking for a CSA in my area (find one in any area in the country through Local Harvest), I discovered that there are fresh flower CSAs, too. Fresh, organic flowers from local growers once a week at my door? Too decadent to be true! To beautiful to ignore! I have this gut feeling that I should save my money for my poor dog’s physical therapy (I have a tripod). But wouldn’t the boost to my spirits from fresh weekly flowers be so powerful that it’s worth it? These flowers look so amazing I think they would even boost the dog’s spirits.

4. February in Minnesota is brutal. Long slog of winter be gone! The picture up top is of my humble garden in the peak of summer. I have it as wallpaper on my computer during February. Only one day to go ’til March….

4b. Okay, so, for technical reasons that I don’t understand, I can’t get the picture of my garden to post. But in the spirit of going home before I get my coworkers sick (see item #1, above), I’ve decided to figure out how to post it tomorrow.

Contented Chaos: Laine finds herself happily in the middle (and in need of a chiropractor).

The Latin phrase, in medias res means, roughly, “in the middle of things” or “ in the middle of the story.” I love the phrase because it captures the way I almost always feel — that somehow the events and progress of my life have no beginnings or endings, that they’re happening on the hidden storyboards of my life without my consciousness, until, one day, I wake up and realize I’m smack in the middle of them.

You know, it’s that feeling like: Whoa, I’m a grown up now, and I have a spouse and kids and a house and…. how did that happen? And you can never quite find a concrete answer — somehow it all just seems to have happened without your explicit knowledge or consent, somehow you were just dropped into your life in medias res?

Often this what-have-I-gotten-myself-into? scenario is played for tragicomedy: the movie protagonist wakes up one day and realizes his marriage isn’t working, he’s gone bald and his kids hate him. His only waking thought is, “Ack! How did I get here?”

And sometimes, sure, life can feel this way. Who hasn’t woken up on a Monday morning and felt the oppressive weight of another day? Job’s grown tedious. Household chores feel overwhelming. Dog ate your favorite shoes (Yes, Aidan, I’m talking to you.) (And, yes, vigorously-eye-rolling reader, I pretend my dog reads my blog.)

But the opposite happens, too. In fact, more often than not I wake up strangely comforted by the dense, complex, often conflicted yet insanely delightful middle of my life.

Because when I stop and really think hard about what I want in my life, I discover have it — a loving family, a cozy house, good health, my own washing machine, a garden plot, a warm cup of tea, an endless stack of good books, superior friends, creative pursuits, a small, warm place to bake. I feel happy and honored to be in the crazy, wonderful middle of my life. I wouldn’t choose anything else.

Sure, sometimes the middle of life is chaotic (which is the whole raison d’etre for this blog). But even the chaos seems joyful when I step back and look at my life with a wide-angle lens. I don’t ask myself, “How did I get here?” I ask, “Why would I ever leave?”

I think, perhaps, the middle of our lives is the perfect place to be. Especially right now for yours truly — as I write this, I’m snarfing down Jamie’s fantastic, homemade Valentine’s treats (Jamie, you’re endlessly talented!), listening to the best cover of a Don Henley song ever that Jen sent me (Jen, you have impeccable taste!). Who could ask for more?