I Don't Care, But...

Yesterday, the White Sox lost 20-1 to the Minnesota Twins.

I don't care, not really, but you can't have that kind of wash out. That's just too much.

Come on fellas.

Cool for Now

We are still mostly not buying it, that is to say, we are still trying to live with The Compact. As I have said before, we mostly still do. We mostly do not buy anything new. My husband buys lumber or screws and nails if he needs them. But, overall, we haven't and still don't buy new things. Which is not to say that we don't buy anything.

Today, for example, I went to our nifty new Salvation Army store and bought the kids a ginormous pile of clothes. They will now have t-shirts and shorts and my daughter will have dresses and both will have jeans without rips in the knees although that is a cool look, I will acknowledge.

I never achieved that look throughout my entire childhood. Firstly, I was in Sears Toughskins... those are not Levi's and you can't achieve any kind of cool look with those no matter how hard you try.

At the time, I had my own idea of what cool looked like so that was OK. I had chipped my front two teeth and had to wear silver caps for a year and a half in first and second grades and I knew, positively knew that I was cool because I could pretend to be Lindsay Wagner in The Bionic Woman. I was the bionic woman with my silver caps. I could cock my head to the side and have my super sonic hearing detect bad guys a mile away, the sun glinting off my silver caps. How much cooler could anyone get? So, Toughskins didn't matter then.

Later on in about 5th grade or so, I desperately wanted to have jeans that had rips in the knees. I finally got Levi's (this was before the Gloria Vanderbilt or Chic madness--that came later), but I was growing so quickly that my jeans never got worn through in the knees. They did become floods almost immediately, however.

It was only as an adult that I finally understood the taunt: "Hey Laura! Can you swim?" and then there would be uproarious laughter. "Of course I can swim!!", I'd angrily retort. Well, kids were asking me that because I was wearing floods--get it? Ah. I see. I think I was an easy target in a lot of ways. I don't think I got the nuanced communication that occurs on the playground.

Any way, today I got all sorts of clothes for the kids. Just as I didn't, my kids don't really understand "cool" either except through their own filters. They have very little brand recognition. They have some, but they're more likely to think something is cool because of its color or what its made of, than because it's part of a giant merchandising juggernaut like Hannah Montana or Disney or even Abercrombie and Fitch.

My kids don't really have a uniform. They don't know they must wear this or that to be cool. They know they are cool because my son can do a headstand for minutes on end and my daughter can adopt a spot on English accent.

It's not The Bionic Woman, but what could be cooler than that these days?

Compost Happens

Yesterday, I turned the contents of our newly constructed compost bin (by the way, thanks son, daughter, and helping husband). I took a pitch fork and brought the wet, moldering, brown leaves from the bottom and turned them over the freshly cut grass that my husband had earlier dumped into the bin. I saw some of the food scraps that hadn't broken down completely yet--sweet potato ends and onion skins and banana peels. But, I can also see that the process has started.

There are worms everywhere--they're loving it.

I know, at some point, that the internal temperature of the pile is supposed to heat up and it can even smoke. It will be cooking, but it's not quite there yet.

Do you compost? Where do you put your compost once it's sweet and ripe? Do you turn it often, or do you just let it slowly melt down, doing its own thing?

I am a bit awed that I can just throw any vegetable matter into a bin and will get a loamy dirt after a few months. To me, that is simply amazing.

Do you know The Weavers? They were a folk group that included Pete Seger and other fabulous signers. These were the kind of singers who have voices like bells; just beautiful to hear their harmony.

Lee Hayes, one of The Weavers, kept a compost bin. And, upon his death, his ashes were scattered on it and mixed in, just as he wished. I think that truly expresses the idea of dust to dust; ashes to ashes. We all melt into the earth when we go. What a great compost pile. What a nice way to become part of the garden he loved.

Here are The Weavers singing, Irene Goodnight.

What's Your Philosophy?

How do you order your life? Do you just drift through? Do you have a set of rules that you live by that are dictated by your faith? Do you see yourself as part of something greater? Or do you see yourself as a mere mote floating through the infinite space of the universe? Is it all some cosmic game, or is it preordained and proscribed from on high?

Do you believe in fate? Are some things meant to be? Why? Are you a marionette with strings pulled from somewhere out of the frame?

Is it just about you? Did Atlas shrug?

What do you think?

Some radical unschoolers frame their relationships with their kids in the light of death. Do you really want to argue about penmanship when your child could be dead tomorrow? Or you? Does that make the time we spend together meaningful? Life is just a blip--phst--it's gone.

I know a man who lost his dad this last Tuesday. His dad died as he wanted, at home, and after having last visits with his family. This same grieving man came home, after visiting with his father, and on Thursday was laid off after having been assured for months by his boss that he was safe. When he finishes up his work in the middle of June, he will have been with the company for ten years.

Was that fate?

Do you believe, as I do, that the universe and all that is in it is beautiful and amazing and it's perfectly OK to not know why or how it all came to be? But what about the stuff that's not beautiful?

Do you feel in any way obligated as a passenger on Earth to try and make it better somehow? Do you feel, as you walk around all day, connected to everybody and everything, or do you have to get the laundry done?

Here's a Zen proverb:

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

That's about right, isn't it? You have to keep on keeping on, because that is a function of being alive.

What's your philosophy?

Let's hear Miss Sally Brown as she sings about her new philosophy, and then maybe you can tell me about yours.