6.1.14 ~ Waterford, Connecticut
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
~ Arthur C. Clarke
(Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination)
sufficiently advanced
6.1.14 ~ Waterford, Connecticut
Category: Tim
6.1.14 ~ Waterford, Connecticut
a pretty good grasp
6.1.14 ~ Waterford, Connecticut
Above all else: go out with a sense of humor. It is needed armor. Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.
~ Hugh Sidey
(The Force Is with You Always!)
whaleship sails
Southeastern Connecticut is buzzing with excitement about the upcoming 38th voyage of the Charles W. Morgan, of Mystic Seaport, the last wooden whaleship in the world. Her 37th voyage was 93 years ago from September 1920 to May 1921. Mystic Seaport has been diligently working to restore her to her former glory for several years now.
Because the Mystic River is shallow, last Saturday tugboats brought the ship to New London, on the deeper Thames River, so they could add ballast and fuss with her sails, making final preparations for her historic voyage. Today we went over to see the Morgan and her crew at work.
Sea trials from New London will be June 7-8 and 11-12, and then on June 17, weather permitting, the Morgan will set sail for her first port of call in Newport. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can get some pictures of her as she sails past Groton on her way out of the Thames River and into Long Island Sound.
The tugs will probably take her down the river so I’m just not sure at what point she will finally be on her own under full sail. I do hope I catch it!!!
A moment of mourning came over me when I realized I had picked out a postcard for my father and was startled to remember yet again that he is gone… He would have loved seeing all this!
Isn’t it amazing how these sailors can work so high up in the rigging? And imagine them doing it while the ship is rolling with the waves…
We watched the PBS documentary, “The Charles W. Morgan” last night and enjoyed learning more about her history. We’re looking forward to following her progress as she embarks on this special 38th voyage!
low tide
Over the years our double-paned sliding-glass doors filled with condensation and became so “foggy” that we could not see out of them. It took us a long time to get around to having them replaced, but we finally did so near the end of April. Zoë was delighted to be able to clearly see the birds and we celebrated by buying two chairs and a little table (at an estate sale) for the balcony.
Never mind that right on the heels of these sips of joy we had a flood in our basement, a sewer backup. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Funny all the twists and turns life brings. Thank goodness our home insurance is covering the cost of clean up and repair. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I’ll be glad when they finish, but we had to interrupt the process to drive to North Carolina as planned.
Everyone’s experience indicates that everything we are, and everything we do, is simply the movement of existence itself. It’s here that we come to the highest realization indicated in all the great spiritual traditions: we do not exist as anything apart from the flow of nature and that flow is an unformed, inexplicable dance accomplishing itself.
~ Darryl Bailey
(Essence Revisited: Slipping Past the Shadows of Illusion)
For a few days forgetting about the ‘inexplicable unformed flow of nature’ in our basement, we started our journey south and delivered Aunt Flora’s rocking chair. We had a wonderful time visiting family. Nate & Shea drove up from Georgia, and I got to see an old friend from high school who happens to live about 2 miles from Dima & Larisa.
And then… Tim got sick with diverticulitis (not again!) which delayed out trip home by a day so the antibiotics he was prescribed could have a chance to start working. Needless to say, we didn’t arrive home feeling particularly refreshed physically, although emotionally we were revitalized for having spent so much time with our children.
Last weekend we made it to a local farmers market. This morning we took a walk on the beach – the tide was very low, revealing the largest piece of driftwood I’ve ever seen. Tim estimates it to be 20-25 feet long! What could it possibly have been? This afternoon we ate our farm-to-table lunch out on our new little table on our sunny balcony. Life is good!
farm to table
Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history. In our daily fare, even in school lunches, we broadly justify consumption of tallow-fried animal pulp on the grounds that it’s cheaper than whole grains, fresh vegetables, hormone-free dairy, and such. Whether on school boards or in families, budget keepers may be aware of the health tradeoff but still feel compelled to economize on food – in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable if the health risk involved an unsafe family vehicle or a plume of benzene running through a school basement.
~ Barbara Kingsolver
(Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
Our food journey continues… On this leg of it I am reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an account of her family’s first year of eating deliberately, consuming only food grown, raised and produced locally or on their own farm. We are fast becoming (grain-free) locavores!
Locavore – a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food. Farm-to-table.
One thing I learned from this book is that local farmers may well be growing things organically, but some of them cannot afford the fee to be certified organic. And some things labeled “organic” in the grocery store may be only marginally so, cutting corners and following the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.
And so I’m discovering things about food sources closer to home. One day I happened to notice a restaurant in town called the Oyster Club. I suppose I never gave it a second look because I don’t care for oysters. But when I did, the tagline on the sign, “farm & sea to table,” caught my eye. When I got home I found their website, which states, “the menu, which is written daily, showcases food that travels the shortest distance from ‘farm & sea to table,’ with seasonality and location determining the day’s delicacies. Benefiting from the region’s many local farmers and fisherman, Oyster Club features bounty from the sea, pasture raised beef, local produce and artisanal cheeses.” Cool!
Today I was at our food co-op and started talking with a woman from Firefly Farms and was astonished to learn that they are raising heritage breeds of chickens, pigs and cows. I had just been reading about the importance of preserving heritage breeds… As their website explains, “The fact that these breeds are too difficult for factory farming is, in our view, the first signal that they are good for people.” We bought a frozen Red Ranger chicken from her and I plan to roast it on Monday. (Easter plans at the nursing home with Auntie tomorrow…) We hope to visit the farm this coming week and learn more about their forest raised pigs! Maybe we will soon need to buy a freezer.
Things have been coming along around here as we continue to heal and to pick up the pieces of our lives. There are more good days than bad days now, and we just had a wonderful two-day visit from Tim’s cousin Allegra. We are also looking forward to a trip to visit our kids and celebrate our anniversary in May.
food shopping
Food – the kind of food we eat and the amount of money we spend on it are hotly debated topics. Because of Tim’s heart disease I’ve been on a quest to find a “diet” that will help his body cope with his compromised state of health. In 2012 we tried a vegan diet and he wound up in the hospital twice that year. In 2013 we switched to a grain-free diet and he has not been hospitalized at all, in spite of being under tremendous stress coping with his brother while he was living with us.
But I’m not writing this to promote any particular way of eating, in fact, my stance is very non-judgmental because I suspect different bodies may need different foods to thrive and avoid disease. One of the most difficult things for me about having Tim’s brother with us for eight and a half months was not that his own diet seemed so unhealthy, but that he never let up on criticizing me for “wasting” so much money on our groceries. I let him cook and eat what he wanted without comment and so wished he would have done the same for me.
I spent a lot of time fuming in my room, meditating, slowly acknowledging my anger and frustration, letting it go, examining with curiosity my beliefs about food.
There is a show on public television I watch all the time called Nature. Because I believe that nature is a great teacher, one day it occurred to me while watching an episode that the chief concern and activity of most animals, who definitely live in the moment, is that of locating and eating food. This thought helped me to see that it is perfectly natural to spend so much time and effort cooking and feeding us well.
This is our story today: It is a story about how spending on food and clothing went from half the family budget in 1900 to less than a fifth in 2000.
~ Derek Thompson
(The Atlantic, April 5, 2012)
It is sobering to see that back in 1900 we considered it normal to spend over 40% of our budget on food! Today the average family spends only 10-15% of its budget on food. And most people complain bitterly about the price of food. We spend more money on fancy “starter castles” and less on nourishing food. Animals will leave their homes and travel to find the food they need to sustain themselves, but we humans demand that our food be delivered to us over great distances and at minimal cost. It seems so lopsided!
So we will continue along our current food path, scouting around for grass-fed beef and wild game, avoiding grains. Paying without questioning higher prices for local and/or organic produce. Knowing that no one has the final answers about food, but feeling much more settled about our choices.
a new life!
An awe-inspiring first glimpse of our new grandchild!!! Due to arrive in September, courtesy of Larisa & Dima! Oh happy, happy, joy, joy!!!
wind chilly
It seems that this winter has been a harsher one than average, a monotony of record low temperatures and record high amounts of snow. March came in like a lion. It must be a potent combination of cabin fever and mourning, but I still feel like I’m staggering around in a daze. Maybe it will go out like a lamb and things will settle down for a time.
Grief distracts is strange ways. There’s the usual opening of the refrigerator to get something out of the microwave, but then there’s the trying to deposit a check stub when I meant to deposit the check itself. Cracking an egg into the sink instead of the bowl. I’m starting to wonder if I’m permanently altered. If adorable Zoë wasn’t waking me up each morning for her breakfast of trout and eggs, I wonder if I’d even bother getting out of bed.
For the life of me I cannot figure out why we decided to go to a cemetery to take pictures last weekend. We just had to get out of the house and it was the only thing we could think of doing outside. Elm Grove Cemetery borders the Mystic River and the wind off the river was biting and icy. My fingers weren’t cooperating they felt so raw.
But I noticed a theme as I got in and out of the car to warm up. I was looking up at the sky and the trees and the way they framed some of the tall monuments. Breathtaking beauty. There was another theme, too, but that will be for another post…
There were a couple of poignant scenes close to the ground, too. Perhaps this flag has been weathering the winter since Veterans Day.
Beloved Mum…
deep sea blue
We seem to keep our cars forever, driving them into the ground before we finally give up and buy a new one. In thirty-eight years of marriage we have only bought five new cars, a 1977 Datsun B210, a 1988 Dodge Grand Caravan (great for transporting 3 kids and all their friends!), a 1997 Toyota Tercel, a 2000 Toyota Echo (so we could let Larisa use it the Tercel for college – she almost drove it into the ground before giving it back to us!), and the new 2014 Subaru Impreza pictured above. Somehow between all the snowstorms we manged to get this one out for a test drive, purchased and finally brought home. I LOVE that the manufacturer describes her color as “deep sea blue.”
As age increases, older drivers generally become more conservative on the road. Many mature drivers modify their driving habits (for instance to avoid busy highways or night-time driving) to match their declining capabilities. However, statistics show that older drivers are more likely than younger ones to be involved in multi-vehicle crashes, particularly at intersections.
~ SmartMotorist.com
Tim keeps saying this is our last car! As we are getting older, with slower reaction times, and seem more easily confused and distracted – Tim actually took a LEFT on a red light a few weeks ago – the safety features seemed most important. I’ve already been avoiding interstates and night-time driving. My depth perception is gone forever, I fear.
When my grandparents were in their sixties they were involved in a car crash at an intersection. They had been visiting us and were on their way home. They drove half a mile down our road and stopped at a stop sign before taking a left onto the highway. But a car they didn’t see was coming up the hill on the highway from the left and crashed into the front of their car, a VW Bus. Someone in a nearby house called the police, but before the sirens started blaring, my mother’s intuition told her something was wrong and led her out to her car and down to the intersection. She got there just before the police and ambulance did, and then followed the ambulance to the hospital.
Fortunately my grandparents were all right. They had multiple lacerations on their faces and broke the same knees – I forget if it was both left or both right knees. 🙂 The nurses at the hospital thought they were such an adorable couple that they bent the rules and put them in the same room. Because they were at a local hospital we got to visit them. I remember how protective of them my mother was, and how she somehow knew the moment they were in danger.
Memories… Let’s hope Tim & I get through our sixties without incident! I am really enjoying the heated seats!! And there are roof racks for the occasional trip to IKEA or trips down south to visit the kids. Georgia & North Carolina, here we come!!!