"...no dead end in sight..."

book: spoiled

Spoiled: Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do about It, Nicols Fox. This book made me more aware of not only what I purchase at the grocery store, but that everything there is a POSSIBLE CONTAGION! But seriously though, this book details several foodborne diseases, as well as the processes used in meat processing (especially poultry). It made me want to make very good friends with le soybean. In fact, there was about a two or three-week period while reading this book in which I bought no chicken. We ate a lot of pasta and sauce, I think. And homemade pizzas.

Don't even start to think that vegetables are safe - oh, no! not even innocent, straight from the plowed earth!vegetables - Fox makes it pretty clear that nothing we eat that has been processed by someone else's hands is safe. The diseases can even come back to haunt years later - hello, delayed reaction Mad Cow Disease! And if you're one of those types who insist on gardening organically - even for the home canning enthusiast, he makes it pretty clear that Nothing You Can is Sanitary Enough. Hello, Mister Botulism! *thumbs up :D

In spite of ruining most of what I'd like to prepare, I do recommend it because it's not fear-mongering; it's a book based upon scientific facts and cases involving Actual People. I think everyone should read it because it's a book that gave me the heebie-jeebies about everything I eat. And isn't that a great way to combat the nation's obesity epidemic?

book + music

Brick Lane: A Novel, Monica Ali. I read this over the course of, what, a few months? Little bites at a time. Normally when the POV changes, or there are large sections of plot that differentiate from the main storyline I get bored rather quickly, but with this novel it was done in such a way as to keep things moving. I liked the characters, and I liked the setting as it wasn't a Westerner's view at all. Also, I noted that Amazon has a version for the Kindle, which is a plus in my book even though I don't own one.

***

What I'm Listening To (list shamelessly ganked from my iTunes):

• The Ultimate Petula Clark.
• To Sir With Love, Lulu.
• Circus, Britney Spears (*ducks)
• Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, Dave Matthews Band - This album marks a couple of firsts for me. The first time I bought a DMB album on iTunes and didn't purchase a tangible CD from a store. The first time I bought a DMB album without listening to any of it first. The first time I sat there for an hour, listening to a DMB album from beginning to end (no stops, no skipping through songs to listen to my favorites first).

I have varying opinions about this album. I know a lot of DMB fans are going to listen and be all smarmy, like "d'awww, tribute to LeRoi" etc. and so forth, and completely disregard any criticism because the entire thing could be viewed as a tribute album. I get that, and in a way, it is. LeRoi was an excellent musician, one of the driving forces in the band, and the sound will never, ever be the same again. It's not that DMB has rolled downhill with this one, or even plateau'd - in fact, they play around with new musical concepts while keeping true to their standard feisty DMB-ness - but just that after recent albums like Everyday and Stand Up it was going to be difficult to branch out into a completely foreign sound or structure.

When I compare the structure of an album like Big Whiskey to, say, the Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (which I realize is more apples to oranges than I would like, in terms of genre, etc), it seems that both bands are trying to keep that same eclectic style and sound, yet evolve into something better than what they have been. While the Foos manage a logical, natural progression from screamy alternative into a mellower, more mature, instrumentally-driven sound from the beginning of ESPG to the end, it seems at times with Big Whiskey that DMB is still clinging to that last thread of days gone by and can't quite evolve to the next level musically. I wonder if arranging the tracks in a different order would have facilitated this.

I agree with a lot of critics who say it's an excellent album, and one that clearly marks a maturation in the lives of the bandmembers, particularly Mr. Dave Matthews himself. However, I think that those who are comparing it to Before These Crowded Streets need to get their heads screwed on straight. They aren't the same people they were fifteen years ago, and if you want to listen to something with the sound of BTCS, go pull out that CD and pop it in the player.

Favorite Track: Alligator Pie

Least Favorite Track: I haven't decided yet. There are certainly tracks that aren't as memorable as others, or that sound like they could have used a little more work, but nothing that I just go "ugh!" and click NEXT on the brave blue iPod. Go buy this album. I'm pretty sure you will like it.

Grade: 4/5

trying to become more tao in light of recent events

Maybe I'm overreacting. This is not the time for harsh moves. Everybody is like "blah blah the economy blah" but seriously. My indignation melts into paralyzing fear of the unknown when I think about venturing out like that. Part of me wants to go EFF IT but that is not sensible. What is sensible is to suck it up, start taking some online classes and just be a grown-up about it for now. Hold my head up high and be classy.

Pitching a smooth hissy fit, which is what I had been planning on doing on the way home from the office last night, is not classy. It will only confirm that I am Not Ready for It. And you know, maybe I'm not. Maybe I don't want all the responsibility. Maybe I want to go at my own pace, and maybe I want to pursue education in a different field. But I don't know yet. That's the problem. Some days I love it and some days I want to chuck the whole thing out the window. Office politics, mos def.

So today at work I am going to attempt to be more Tao. Which leads me into a few excerpts from the book I just finished reading, The Tao of Pooh:

"Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don't like. But once we see they're there, we can decide what we want to do with them. Do we want to get rid of them completely, change them into other things, or use them in beneficial ways? The last two approaches are often especially Useful, since they avoid head-on conflict, and therefore minimize struggle. Also, they allow those transformed characteristics to be added to the list of things we have that help us out.

In a similar manner, instead of struggling to erase what are referred to as negative emotions, we can learn to use them in positive ways."

***

"If you're in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on, you can look back and say, "Oh, now I understand. This had to happen so that those could happen, and those had to happen in order for this to happen..." Then you realize that even if you'd tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn't have done better, and if you'd really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing."

***

"In order to take control of our lives and accomplish something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to learn to Believe. We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us."

***

It's a most excellent book, and while I don't think I'm a Taoist I think some of the concepts are fascinating.

Since today is Thursday I am going to focus on the upcoming weekend, in which I am going to accomplish the following:

1. spot clean and vaccuum the carpet

2. clean the babehs' cage (and the floor of the bathroom where they act like a little medieval village and just toss their poo out the window XD)

3. practice, practice, practice the mandolin

4. make a little drawstring bag for my Americanized bento box

5. clean up my study, especially my craft table and the floor around it

6. take the recycling out! woohoo~

7. cook something fabulous for my bear (in addition to making another batch of that bean stuff because it was freakin stellar...although this means buying more queso fresco, which I could pop like Skittles or something because it is so good)

8. get my car inspection and registration sticker taken care of

9. plan out this week's menu

10. sell some more stuff on Ebay.

Whether or not this list happens, we shall see, but I am going to try to take lots of pictures for everyone! Maybe I should just put the Sims disc in a locked cabinet for forty-eight hours >_>;

today is...

Earth Day! But more importantly, Rudie's birthday!

Rudie likes crinkly things!

I've had Rudie for about three and a half years. I moved back to Denton for school in August 2005, and by Labor Day '05 I had my Ru. She was six when I got her, so I missed out on all the fun kitten-type stuff. I feel like I got the kitten half with Moffet, and then there was a ten year break, and now I get all the snuggly old lady-cat stuff with my Rudie.

How do I know how old she is? Well, her birth date is on her adoption papers. It also says that the reason she was given up was because her owner's fiancee was allergic to cats. The papers say they lived not far from where we live now. 

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I were to take her to a vet in town (currently I still take her to her old vet in Denton. long story) and he recognized her because her old owners took her there. I mean, it's not like they would BATTLE FOR CUSTODY OMG but sometimes I have these thoughts of finding them and chastising them, first off, for being so hideous as to give her up when she is such a sweet girl (albeit neurotic - but you'd be too if you spent two months of your life locked in a little cage and had no idea why). I also would like to see if their marriage has lasted - but that's a whole other tangent. Then I'd thank them because without this, I wouldn't have gotten my black and white girl back. I wouldn't have had closure from losing her when I was so young. I know she's not Moffet, but the physical resemblance is uncanny.

Also! Because today is Earth Day - I wanted to mention that we have started recycling plastic, and thus far, we have an entire trash can full in just under a week! Plastic bottles, drink containers, and even a bottle that once contained Advil all have recycling symbols on the bottom. It's amazing! (You can read more about this here.) So this weekend I will be taking this, as well as the huge bag of paper I've been shredding, to a local recycling drop-off, and will look into getting a second trash can to put glass in. We eat a lot of pasta sauce, and while I thought initially about saving the jars I can only use so many of them for art supplies, and since we don't have a yard to grow tomatoes to make sauce it's pretty much pointless. So recycling will probably be a project for this weekend. I like it!

Another way I've been trying to cut back on plastic waste is by reusing the same water bottle. They are making them with 30% less plastic nowadays, or so the label says, but they are still refillable (and check the bottom - yes, they are recyclable too!). One of my coworkers introduced me to a line of Crystal Light water flavorings that are pretty punchy and delish, so I've been using those as an incentive to drink more water and refill my bottles instead of chunking them outright.

Speaking of yards, also, I have had a really bad bout of houselust lately. My cousin Wiffabeff is getting married in the fall, and she and her future Mr. Wiffabeff are buying their first house, an adorable old thing that will be just perfect for the two of them, and of course being the older cousin and being used to doing things first I am heinously jealous :) But after the initial OMGWANTTHISTOO phase I come to realize several things must happen before pookie and I can even consider this important phase of our lives:

1. We both have credit cards that have to be paid off. Or at least down to a more reasonable place.

2. Jay has to graduate and transition from his university job of the last three years to whatever job he will choose as his career, or the beginnings thereof.

3. I need to assess my own place and ask myself if this is where I want to be for the next 30 years while we are paying off a mortgage. (The answer - probably not.) Do I want to go back to school? (Yes.) Would we have the money for me to be in school and making a house payment each month? (That's a toss-up.)

[Note: #2 and #3 are pretty important, as this will determine the area we end up living in. I know people dog on south Dallas but I really like the big ol' houses there :( So we will have to invest in a security system and a large angry-looking dog. Maybe an electric fence. Or some land mines? I don't think the city will allow those. Crap.]

4. Our combined income needs to be enough that even if our monthly house payments are low, we can afford to put money away in case, say, a hot water heater goes out or we have a ceiling leak or termites or mold or...omg I'm just going to stop thinking about that or I will go nuts. But there is definitely a mathematical proportion of having a low house payment (due to bad area, older house, etc.) which is inversely proportioned to the amount of money you will have to spend on preventive maintenance, repairs, etc. Gross.

5. We have to both be ready to potentially spend our weekends painting, or replacing things, or repairing. If we both work full time I know basic house maintenance will get pushed to the wayside until Saturday, when we will both look at each other and flail about and then watch KERA for five hours instead of just sucking it up and going to Home Depot. I know I'd rather spend sixteen hours of my weekend playing Sims than working in a flowerbed in August, and I also know I consider mowing the lawn to be a Man Chore, which may not necessarily be how my dear pookie sees it. I'm not worried about hard work, I'm just worried about us being able to delegate without lots of nagging and/or stressing out. It shouldn't be stressful, I think, or at least not horrendously.

So that is basically where I stand on that. I made this list so I can reference it in manic bouts of wanting something that is out of our price and effort range right now. I think that's a part of my personality where I want something nice but not necessarily the responsibility for it. I mean, ideally I'd like to move into Dallas in the fall and rent something, get a feel for the area, but we shall see.

I also finished reading The Tao of Pooh, which I will write more about in my next entry as I am now starting to be Late for Work, and that is no bueno.

books

Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-In House, Sarah Messer - I finished this over Christmas vacay and found it to be an interesting account of both the house and the author's family inhabiting it.Two Little Girls (A Memoir of Adoption), Theresa Reid - Russian adoption and all the good and bad. Read it over Christmas in about thirty-six hours because I absolutely couldn't put it down.The Southern Girl's Guide to Surviving the Newlywed Years (How to Stay Sane Once You've Caught Your Man), Annabelle Robertson - I bought it on Friday, finished it yesterday, laughing like a fool at several points. I'd recommend it to any newlywed Southerner.
Real post in a few moments, but I figured I'd catch everybody up to speed as to what I've managed to knock out from my huge stack of Yet To Read stuff lately.