My husband has done it again. He grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat. He looked the enemy in the eyes and did not blink.
He is amazing, I tell you!
See the picture above? That is the wrong amp. but it looks like the kind of fuse that blew out of our washing machine as I was putting in a load of clothes. Clothes, that if you must know (and you must, because this bit adds import) had not a few of my dirty underwear. I needed to do a load of laundry STAT!
The lights came on showing me that the washing machine was running--but there was no water sound. The tub wasn't filling. There wasn't any kind of sound whatsoever. It didn't work!
I called my husband at work, and when he came home he opened up the machine.
That is an action that just never occurs to me. Does it occur to you? Do you think, "Hm. I think I'll just take a peekie boo and see if I can't SEE what the problem might be." I don't think to do that because I don't know what I'm looking for or if I would recognize it if I did see it. "Oh, you mean there aren't supposed to be blown fuses in the workings of the washing machine? Huh." * blink, blink* * blink, blink*
I went to Radio Shack and got the replacement fuse.
My husband just put it in and the washing machine is washing my clothes as I write this to you. It is amazing! But, that's not all...
On the way to work, my husband felt that his bike tire was low. He had a slow leak and was able to stop at a gas station and fill it up enough to get him to work. From work he brought home a battery operated pump and used it as needed on the way home.
When he got home, he fixed the computer that was saying telling us that there was a virus. But, there really wasn't--just spam; it was very urgent, insistent spam. Seemed real.
Isn't he the greatest?
Yeah, he is.
I know it's all a bit of white man's blues. It's first world problems we were facing. Those kind of minor, frustrating things that pop up and must be dealt with and solved and corrected. No one's health was in jeopardy. No one was hungry. The problems only lasted a day.
I just am pleased that my partner knows how to take care of stuff and does.
My grandmother, my dad's mother, would give me her Amnesty International letters when she was done copying them, so that I could type them up and send them to whatever offensive, cruel dictator was torturing and keeping political prisoners. By shining a light on the injustice, it helped to apply the pressure of world condemnation and free hundreds of prisoners. It worked and probably still does...which brings me to my point.
I'm sad. I feel futile. Not completely futile, but I feel like there are those that care and those who don't and the ones who don't care outnumber the ones who do and we're in trouble. It wouldn't matter, if it didn't matter, but it does matter.
I've felt this way before. In the 80's I marched at nuclear freeze rallies in Chicago. While at school in Santa Fe, I was part of a peaceful blockade of Los Alamos and no bombs were built for about an hour and then we were all arrested. It was a small, small gesture, but it felt like we were doing something.
The blockade got me handcuffed (with those plastic tie thingies with the barbs that you put around Glad garbage bags and the like), fingerprinted, photographed, dressed in an orange jumper so if I made a break for it across the New Mexican desert, I would have been easily caught. My cell companion was a tiny lizard that scuttled across the floor. I didn't get to know the habits of a jail lizard because we were out, released to my friend's dad, in about 3 hours. It really wasn't hard time. This wasn't the march on Selma. It was just a protest and they arrested us college kids for obstructing traffic. We kind of felt like Arlo Gutherie in Alice's Restaurant where he was on the bench with the mother rapers and the father stabbers and the father rapers and he was asked, "What were you arrested for, Kid?" He told them he was busted for littering.
These days I write on my piddly little blog hoping to inspire others to cut back on what they don't need, what is getting us all into so much trouble--our American, absolutely out sized thirst for things. We must have, all the bloody time and it has created: a garbage gyre the size of Texas in the Pacific, pollution all over the world, slave labor and way under compensated labor all over the world, human rights abuses, oil consumption that has such a horrific effect--did you know that some greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for decades? So, the polluted atmosphere that we're seeing now is a result of what we did all of this last century and before...how many hummers were there back then? What will we see 50 years from now?
The quest for things has a more personal scope as well as causing such havoc around the world. What are we doing when we're buying, throwing out, and quickly buying again? What holes are permanently filled by such actions? Is there some space that will get filled in by these things? Why the need to buy more? As a society we've been suckered and conned and many see American society and America as merely a capitalist enterprise. Our citizenship is to be expressed by our purchases (God Bless the USA!! t-shirts) instead of involvement and pressure to force change.
I don't think the fat cats are going to give it up willingly--I think we all have to get mad and make them change.
One of the comments to my I-can't-believe-Palin-doesn't-know-Africa's-a-continent-post (I later conceded that she probably did know after all...) was from someone who agreed with another angry poster that I was filled with hate and she wondered why everything had to be about politics. I'll tell you why. This is why:
The ice caps are melting because we create too much pollution.
The world is warming and creating erratic, unpredictable, damaging weather.
Bee Colony Collapse Disorder is causing bees to die in many places around the world--are you going to hand pollinate fruit and vegetables and grain...who will? What will you and your family eat?
Our country has been torturing people--pouring water into faces and throats almost to the point of drowning (waterboarding). We've had special extradition--sending people to countries that torture so they will do that for us. These are people who've not had trials, nor have they been specifically charged. There's no proof of guilt for anything.
There are more things wrong, but that's enough to start being a little political, isn't it? How will these things change, if not through active citizens demanding it? Obama gave so much hope for so many--he gets it. He has announced that he will close Guantanamo. That's a start.
In the meantime, I'm sad. I don't do very much towards changing any of this. I try to inform as I learn things, and I try to share how our life experiment, The Compact, is going--maybe others will join us? And then I see what people are interested in--purchasing stuff, Hollywood gossip, popular culture. It's disheartening. I know others are worried about our shared future and care too, but my frustration comes in the realization that using cloth napkins is not going to halt the retreat of glaciers. I can wipe up spills in the kitchen with our old cloth diapers and it won't keep the oceans rising. If I buy used clothing from Goodwill, it doesn't stop slave labor making plastic spiders in China.
They're making "green" objects that you still don't really need--it will still be unnecessary consumption. People will then feel that they're saving the earth when they buy recycled paper napkins: post-consumer no less. Or, when they buy a giant hybrid SUV that gets maybe 18 mpg instead of 8 mpg. Go green!!
Where are the corporations in all of this? They exist for their own survival--not your's, not mine, not the earth's. They will not change without force. They will change if they think it's good for their bottom line.
What if they had to recycle all of their excessive packaging--what if they were responsible for that garbage? Do you think they would produce more, or less? There are such laws in Germany. They've reduced their waste by significant amounts. These were regulations passed by the government--industry didn't volunteer these changes.
And speaking of Germany, my grandmother told me back in my nuclear freeze days that I had the German term, Weltschmerz--world pain, basically. I did, and do. But, I'm not completely depressed. I have the immediacy of my life with my kids and husband and friends. I'm not thinking about the melting polar ice caps when I'm making faces with my daughter and son. I allow joy and hope in. I try to give it to them as well. Oh, but I wonder what my husband and I will leave for my kids and theirs, and theirs, and theirs. It matters, I think, and I'm a little sad about it all.
Oh well. Thanksgiving is coming soon. Let's just listen to some Arlo Guthrie now and you can imagine me as a 17 year old weltschmerz struck girl in a Santa Fe jail watching a scuttling lizard on the floor.
Lizards probably don't care about melting polar ice caps.
My kids have recently been introduced to all of the campy, over-the-top, low production values of Dr. Who--the old and the most recent versions, both.
My kids were both absolutely psyched with the idea that I was going to get them up at 10:00 tonight and let them watch the show. Can I be clear here that my kids are morning people? Not 9ish or even 8ish. For years it has been 5:30 or 6:00 that they have gotten up--without an alarm. I don't begin to understand that kind of freakish behavior, but this is their natural rhythm. So, it was understood that they could go and rest in their rooms doing whatever they wanted and if they fell asleep I promised I would get them up. Promise.
May I also clarify the huge amount of trouble I'm going to be in with them in the morning when they realize that I tried to get them up and their eyes just continued to flutter under their eyelids as they were probably already in rem sleep? I. Could. Not. Get. Them. Up. Rag dolls the both of them. I was almost yelling in their ears.
"Wake up!", I said. "Do you want to go watch the show? Do you want to see the show? Do you want to get up and watch Dr. Who?? DO YOU??" Nothing.
I am in huge trouble. My kids will not understand their altered state and will not remember me jostling them and asking them to get up.
I have a lot to say, and will say it tomorrow. Suffice it for now to say, I'm afraid that I'm just preaching to the choir here. And while I think it's great to share support for each other and share ideas and learn from one another--still, I think we are in DEEP SHIT and I don't think it's enough for everyone to continue to just do their own thing.
Rant coming tomorrow.
So, that's an up, right? Isn't this a fun blog? Aren't I just a sparkly ray of sunshine? Don't I just inspire you to greater feelings and thoughts and achievements in your own lives? Huh? Don't I?
doulamamma reminds me of how overwhelming all of the bad news can be. To my post reporting about the gigantic crack in the ice in a glacier on Greenland
Sometimes I feel like Andie McDowell in Sex Lies & Videotape re. garbage (if you know the reference). It's so freaking overwhelming. I know there are things I can personally do (& I do them, to a great extent), but it's hard to stand by & watch this all take place & feel pretty damn helpless.
August 22, 2008 7:15 PM
Yes, it is very hard to realize that the ice is melting away and there's pollution in the air and water and earth and erosion and desertification and the Amazon is being gobbled up and we just seem to be throwing it all away.
But, in the meantime, I have my husband and my kids and my family and my friends and sunny days and dramatic storms and art and music and food and laughter and irony and so it's all still so beautiful. And you have yours, and she has hers, and he has his and so on all over the earth.
So, what to do? We all can do what we can do. Can we do more? Can we all strike a balance between what we really need and what we must do?
I think life is beautiful and amazing. That's why it is all so tragic and awful that we are screwing it up. I am awed by the butterflies we have seen this summer grow from egg to a tiny line of a caterpillar to a plump caterpillar to a jewel chrysalis to a new tentatively flapping monarch. I am awed by my children daily. I am awed by my friends and their kids. My husband amazes me...How could the ice be melting away? Why is the ice melting away?
It's gonna take more than just shaking our heads and tisking. It's going to take more than people bitching on blogs and on the radio and on TV. We could be yelling like Howard Beale from the top of our lungs and it wouldn't do anything...unless it was in unison. That does work. That has always worked. That does make change. But, not if we're all just amusing ourselves to death (which is a great book, by the way). If we're just living our insular lives without ever extending outward into the world's problems, we will never fix them. Ultimately, they really are all of our problems. The world is us.
I think in our personal lives, in our human dealings with one another, we could do well to follow Bobby McFerrin's advice--Don't Worry, Be Happy. Be gentle with one another. Be easy on yourself. Be lovely. Don't get out of joint and disconnected from what is true and important.
The problems with the world, however, I think we need to all rise up and speak out about. It is not freakin' OK that the ice is melting and the seas are rising and we continue to amuse ourselves by buying plastic crap that pollutes at every step of the manufacturing/shipping/purchasing/throwing out process.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!!
The kids presented various topics: karate, the Japanese flag and how it changed after WW II, WW II and Japanese internment camps, Yakatas and getas (the platform sandals), rice bowls, children's books written in Japanese and about Japanese subjects, the significance of cherry blossoms, Zen gardens, origami, paper fish kites (carp--because they are strong), a world map and showing us all where Japan is and where it is in relation to Hawaii, and bullet trains! They can go 275 MPH. Take that, traffic congestion! Take that, carbon foot print!
We ate: sushi, chocolate covered Pocky sticks (even one marked "Men's"...what do you suppose that means exactly?), various crackers, rice and beef teriyaki, udon noodles with a peanut sauce (a personal favorite of mine--delicious. Yes, it is too!), Ramune soda and Calpico soda.
From 7:00 to 9:00 last night, we were immersed in Japanese culture and laughter with our friends and good conversations and good food.
What was that socialization argument again against homeschooling? Oh, that's right--our kids are maladroit loners. Last night, I guess they were all too busy listening to each other and talking and laughing together, while we adults were doing the same, to realize what a mistake we've made in homeschooling. God, we all better get a clue soon!
Above, you see a map of viewers to my blog. It changes from day to day, but this is fairly representative.
Hello all of you. I know you're there because I see my stat counter and the map it generates. Hello.
When I started this blog I had hoped that it would all become a conversation about how we consume in this country and whatever else was the subject matter at hand. Enough of you either like what I write here, or are curious about our homeschooling lifestyle, or like my take on the political wrangling going on this election cycle that you return--day after day after day. You've even answered polls, sometimes, rarely, you've left a comment or two (thanks!).
Lately, the lack of comment on your end has been getting to me. You are not obligated to leave a comment. Sometimes there's not an obvious opening for a comment or it's simply not thought provoking enough or I've summed it all up so brilliantly that there's really nothing to add...or, something. Some people never want to leave a comment even if they have fantastic ideas and could really add something to the conversation...But, this blog is anonymous. You don't have to sign with your real name. You can just float an idea out there.
I just think this whole blog thing would be more fun if it did become a lively conversation. I'm turning to you for some ideas about how to make it more so, and then the irony of that makes me smile a little bit--I can hear the chirping of crickets. Listen. OK. That's you guys not talking. Hello! You are letting the chirping crickets do all of the talking. Well, I do all of the talking and then the chirping crickets answer me. You don't want chirping crickets to shape all of the conversation do you?
Originally, We Don't Buy It was about my family's life experiment of not buying new things for a year in 2008. We mostly did it and learned a lot about our relationship to things. Now, this blog is more about the ideas we don't buy. Oh, so many awful ideas and pressures out there. We're rejecting a lot of them--ideas that keep people boxed in, and stuck. We're going our own way. We still don't buy it.
Posts
