What takes up brain space now, in pie chart formation.

And on that note...

The Great Schlep.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Makes me yearn for some retired grandparents in FLA. Oh well. I'll have to be content with the wary California voting pair that I do have. I don't think they really want to vote or Obama, but they will. So you don't have to worry about Cali. Phew!

V. Important.

Thanks to Bex for this one. I think it's important enough to repeat here. Why aren't we seeing these clips, these images of Iraq in mainstream media? I have no doubt it would make a difference in the polls.

F.

Best Of Intentions.

I had every intention of posting a photo of a mid-summer Farmers Market haul, a sort of "this is what $20 bux'll get ya in Stumptown" sort of thing, prompted by a convo I had with KDog last week in Ventura... But alas, in spite of the blogg-o-guilting, I just can't find the photos.

I know they are around here somewhere, but as I'm drowning in technology and everything looks and sounds the same to me half the time ("Oh this is the 1Gig micro sd card in an adapter, huh, have you seen the 80meg sd card anywhere, cause it's got my summer photos on it") and Joosh has no discernable system of organizing all the little bits, I'm totally lost. I'm nearly certain I backed up all the photos before he left on his roadtrip (dispatches from which I am clearly extremely late in updating, heavysighwhatever). However, I can't find the USB stick onto which I think they were copied, nor can I remember on which of the three laptops (in various states of disrepair, lest you get the wrong idea) we have floating around right now did I make extra-super-duper-secure-thirdly-backed-up back ups? So. Um. Moving on until tomorrow when I can bug my tech guy to please please pretty please find my photos please and thanks!

So instead, I want to tell you about two exciting things.

1) My brother Z is in day one of a five-week stint as a sort of local organizingCaptain for the Obama campaign, organizing throngs of out-of-state and local volunteers in Nevada. He's staying in some lady's Vegas house, along with his old roommate and basically working 7 days a week supporting teams of canvassers, phone bank callers, etc. He's staying in said lady's guest house, actually, with a pool, jacuzzi, tennis courts, the whole shebang... but likely he'll not have time to enjoy these much, it would seem from his schedule so far. It sounds like they have a shit-ton of work to do, all day, every day. I saw him online at midnight, and he was still at the headquarters after a long day. Mmmm, Politics. It's going to be intense. But all this work is so important, and really seems like it stands to make a difference. As he put it on the MyFace: Gonna turn it blue for Obama! This is so exciting.

2) Which brings me to: Opportunities to make a difference without giving up 5 weeks of your life...

I'm really impressed with the Obama campaign for all of its innovative strategies toward volunteers, outreach, connecting with the masses of voters who are out there, who may not be engaged, who may not have access to accurate representations of the campaigns, folks who may get all of their information from the absurd sound bites into which much of the issues and policy nuances have been reduced. The simple act of phone banking, including the request to bring your own cell phone (free weekend minutes!), and the fact that you can sign up to make calls from home in your own time (whaaaa?) is amazing.

Check the website: there is probably a phone banking timeslot open in your area this weekend.

Another goodie that I just found out about is detailed here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/gpl9km

It's essentially filling out postcards with a few words about why you support Obama, putting .27 cent stamps on them, and mailing them en masse (bulk envelope) to campaign headquarters in swing states, where volunteers will address and mail them locally to undecided voters (I think). Maybe this is totally simple, but I think it's totally brilliant. The fact that we can all spend 15 minutes and $5 bux, in our own time and do something positive for the campaign is terrific.

Here in Portland there is a gal organizing a group Postcard-ing event at a local coffee shop. As the cards should be state or locally focused (the personal touch?), she is going to have some sort of handmade card printing situation - Gocco? - plus some cards already dry and ready to be filled out in case you're short on time. Rad. I am truly impressed.

I hope you might have a few minutes to purchase and fill out a few postcards, in this case prior to September 30, but also keep checking the MyBarackObama site for updates.

Here's why:

If you care to know about some of the crap going on behind the scenes, or just in case you are at work or school or the kids are napping and you're reading this with some time on your hands, I will leave you with two articles that totally made my blood run cold. One of which I am especially trying to take with appropriate grains of salt, but both of which leave me terrified all the same. There is a significant internal battle being waged in me this minute and pretty much all the time, between the forces of good hopeful optimism (all my Peace Studies/all you need is love/namaste understanding of the universe) and the rotten fungal spores of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that multiply like infectious bacteria in my heart.

As with so many things that have happened in the last 8 years, I keep thinking: this can't possibly be. How is it that we find ourselves here? On every level - civil rights, privacy, torture (TORTURE!!!), environment (acceptable amounts of toxics in our food and in our bodies and melting icecaps, rising waters, shifting weather, dead oceans, lone-star-state sized plastic-filled gyres in the Pacific... the tips of the icebergs), healthcare, economy, energy, integrity of the election system, foreign policy, the war, veteran treatment, infrastructure, secrecy, blatant horrible croneyism, disaster capitalism, the bankrupting of the future... This. Cannot. Be.

So let's try to make sure that it will no longer be... that would be great. And I hope it's not too late. Because according to these two, we're in even bigger trouble than you might think:

Per RFK, Jr. ("Is your vote safe?") we are sliding down the slope here, Sisyphuses, all of us. And we all responsible for making sure our fundamental system of demanding change - the act of voting - is intact. We've already been sold electronic voting machines, which are a total effing unverifiable crock bought sold and managed by Republican interests, and now hundreds of thousands of mostly democratic voters are being scrubbed from the registration rolls. WTF, America?

Per Naomi Wolf (my grain of salt taker-with-er), Sarah Palin (don't EVEN get me started on this lady, jesus christ) is the Trojan Horse of the Police State Apocolypse. It's a tad bit conspiracy theoryish, but on the other hand, so many things that I would have chalked up to tin-foil hat-wearing kooks have turned out to be horrifyingly true so maybe she's a Cassandra and not a harpy.

Oh, and also (this is totally why I shouldn't blog late at night - I cannot be trusted to maintain coherence or frame of reference or keep it under a million words of rambledom), I suggest listening to some Naomi Klein interviews about all of the Wall Street bail out shenanigans going on right now.

So I had the best of intentions for a nice easy short and sweet entry of fruit and veg from our kick ass local market, and instead you get this half-hopeful & yay-we-can-do-it/half-dismal we're-in-for-more-puke-worthy-rides-on-the-shit-coaster post and all I can say is something about the road to hell being paved with all my bests and leave you to go about your business.

Happy Friday (?).

Double check your registration status. Then go buy some postcards, write a few nice things on 'em and mail them to Ohio. Do it for the children.

Not Exactly What I Pictured.

Wow. You know, ew, but also wow.

** Updated to make a more obvious link to the BBC article from whence this lovely photo came. Please click here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7447942.stm

Also, if I were going to title this photo, without knowing anything about it, I would call it "Vitamin E gel cap erupting from the backside of an eyeball." I would, of course, be very very wrong.

Cannot Wait For This (Warning: Nerd Alert).

Oh, oh BSG. Where have you been all my life? What's with the bovine gestation-length hiatus, hmm?

For other fans, here is a normal, relatively milquetoast (yet still thrilling!) Season Four preview, below.



For other fanatics like me, explosive Season Four "Exclusive Preview" (with SPOILERS so if you haven't seen the end of S3 yet, beware) can be seen on this web site.

I am retardedly excited for the season to start, even though I am bummed it will be the last (I did see a headline somewhere that SciFi may be doing some kind of prequel involving life on Caprica or New Caprica? Not sure. Remind me to look up). At any rate, I love this show with the same feverish passion I held for "The West Wing." And that, my friends, is a muthalode'o'love.

This One's For You (NSFW).

Someone is turning in the following cover art (um, "art") for a final project today:

The assignment, I am told, was to create a magazine cover and related topical content (headlines, not actual content, thank you Jesus, although there really is a "How To" article to be included titled: "How to Steal Another Woman's Man and Suffer No Guilt").

It came down to a choice between this, The Journal Of Inappropriate Humor (featuring AR ad* campaigns, of course), Evil Overlording Weekly or the controversial Self-Hating Jew (a magazine for Jews questioning the policies of Israel's current government).

But Whoring Monthly, that's A + right? Especially since the students are to submit a document that demonstrates their own grade in one format or another. This student chose a Press Release, highlighting the simultaneous win of both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, featuring the factoid that she (or he, you know, the anonymous student) received a BA from Cal, an A in Dangerous Words, and will be donating the proceeds of the unprecedented prize win to her (or his) International charity, Bitterroots.

*If you don't already know what this is, I'm pretty sure you don't want to, so please don't ask.

Ouch, dude.

Yeah, what he said.

(This seems to be viral, not actually sponsored by the Chosen One as indicated, fyi.)

Cutest Boy I Know.

While trying to find a photo of a previous Hanukkah bush (the first that Josh and I had in Berkeley, that had a super funny Dr. Seuss-like crooked bend in the middle), I came across these sweet snaps from last summer's camping trip at Lost Lake with the Watsons:

How unbelievably adorable is this kiddo, I ask you? He's like the poster child for the tremendous fun and good times involved in camping. Look at this face:


Such a sweetheart, and so good during our adventure! This was during some of the worst of the family business drama that I was dealing with over the summer, and this little man never failed to put a smile on my face through it all. I think I might have written down some of the gems he came up with during this trip, if I can find them I'll post them (after all, why should such a dollface be limited to public embarrassment from just his parents, right? Honorary Aunties with blogs should be allowed to kvell, too).

Speaking of public embarrassment, I also found some photos from New Year's Eve Y2K (what Millennium Bug?). I am still deciding if I will post them, a la Bex's "Old School Photo of the Day."

I am leaning toward yes. We'll see.

Why pine?

Joosh and I were discussing this question as we went to pick up a tree last week. Procurement and decoration of a tree is the next step in our sorta Jewy, sorta Atheistic/Agnostic,
Shut-up-Fundy-cause-Jesus-Was-a-Liberal (And Please Step Away From the Walmart Swag Pile'o'Hypocrisy) version of The Holidays. The inner Hippie wrestling to burst forth from within (getting stronger every year we live here, and every minute closer to the official childbearing years, I must say) wanted to get a live tree, but the Realist who understands that I live in a small apartment wrestled control of reason and rationality, and off we went to one of three tree farms scouted on the Internets that won me over with offers of hot cider and/or free flocking.


Just kidding about the flocking, kids. Can you see me getting that white sh*t on my Hanukkah Bush? Meh. (And yes, I know it's a Christmas Tree, but even though I am more of an I-heart-matzo-ball-soup Jew than a temple-goer, I must still refer to any holiday trees as Hanukkah bushes. And again, yes, I realize I am not fooling anyone. Whatever. Look away). But the cider, I would never kid about cider.

So on the last day of Hanukkah - sorry, fellow Chosen Peeps - Joosh grabbed the Crackberry and I, the camera (but not cash or my checkbook) and off we went for an hour or two of tree-hunting adventure. Or several hours, as it turns out that in a well-pine-treed area such as our new home state, it is few and far between out in the countryside off-the-beaten-path tree providers that accept credit cards. Luckily we had the aforementioned Crackberry, and it led us on a long and finally fruitful goose chase to a WAY off the beaten path tree farm that happily accepted the old plastic AND had cider (I had all but given up hope on the cider after four tree farms that were all cash-or-check only).

We were greeted by a super cute dog - um, Lab, maybe? - and a jolly old guy who sort of laughed when I asked if he accepted credit cards. I thought for sure he was scoffing at me since we were something like 14 miles from the main road and had just slip-slided up a super freaky muddy gravel road and was I kidding with a question like that? But then he said "Little lady, we have everything here but wagon rides. You want it we got it... 'Cept the rides, of course." He looked past me, eyebrows raised, I assume looking for the crestfallen faces of the wee one(s) I must surely have dragged all this way on a weekday afternoon to enjoy the funtimes of a U-Cut tree farm. "Awesome," I said, and waved to Joosh that we were good to go. Jolly guy looked puzzled as Joosh rose from the car, and was clearly baffled by us at this point... either that or he was trying to work out a hard math problem in his head, but I am assuming that we were the source of his does-not-compute face. That's okay. We are, of course, used to it by now!

"Okay, well, great, so over there you got your Nobles, then behind the pond you got your Dougs, Frasers and your Nordmans, and of course the Grands," he pointed and swung his arms in all directions. "Anything with a yellow tag is a Grand, so watch out for those." He gestured toward the price list, spraypainted on a white board next to the Get-Yer-Cider/Pay-Here canvas tent. Grands were $40, any size. Ouch. (Granted, that is A STEAL compared to what we paid for trees in CA, but during this downsized holiday I was planning for a tiny tree, coming in at no more than say $15 or $20). Other trees ranged from $4 - $6 bux per foot, extra for the white stuff, natch.

I moved to grab one of the grizzled, rusty, mud-caked hand saws hanging from a makeshift bike-cum-hacksaw rack, and Jolly guy stopped me with a dismissive wave. "Those are pretty, uh, hard to manage, and it's pretty muddy out, so unless you have your heart set on pulling yours down all by yourself, you can just holler up at us and we'll come out and chain it for you."

Score! I love the heartiness (hardiness?) of the Do-It-Yourself experience at UCut farms, but I love it even more when I don't actually have to get muddy during the DIY-ness of it all.

The search. In our eight years together, Joosh and I have had five trees, I think? And every year, including those when we traveled and did not select a tree, we have argued over the nature of what merits a good holiday tree. I can't keep the names straight (especially here in the Northwest where there are more than just Doug firs and Nobles found on lots in Ventura, for example), but the main difference comes down to bushiness. J loves those very needle-y, very full, classic pine triangle trees, where the ornaments sort of hang but mostly lay nestled against the backdrop of thickly crisscrossed needles. I prefer the more sparse look of the Nobles (the name of my faves, I can of course remember), where there is room between the elegant branches spiraling out from the tree trunk, and the ornaments hang freely down between them.

I usually win the argument (not sure how, come to think of it, it can't be purely based on the repetition of the words "elegant" and "classic" and "refined" and "more aesthetically pleasing, duh" over and over - it's probably more because he feels silly putting his foot down over something ornamental and temporary... either that or he just likes to make me happy more than he likes to win... nyawww) but this year, I thought I should maybe throw him a bone and get one to his liking.

Since we won't be traveling to see family, and since it will pretty much just be the two of us for what is usually a very active and busy holiday full of clan members, I thought it would be nice for him to have the tree that makes him most nostalgic and feels most like Xmas. And also? I, um, sort of blurted out something totally assholio in parking lot of the first tree farm (prior to being turned away for our lack of more than $12 in cash). I am ashamed to admit that in response to his "If you want to, we can get a tree you like, we can skip a bushy one" I said something like "No no, that's okay, we can get your ugly-ass bushmonster ghetto tree." I am cringing right now. I don't know, it just came out. Not with terrible venom, but definitely without any forethought whatsoever. And after that, well you can bet that nothing short of Joosh screaming loudly and repeatedly that he REALLY HATES THE BUSHY KIND would allow me to select anything else on that farm but the most piney, bushy, needley, ornament-nestling thing I could find.

So here it is:
And again, in case you missed it (shorter when next to a human, yes?):


And in it's final resting place, all decorated and purty:


On the way home, with the car all filled with sweet crispy pine smells and the earthy mud crusted on my shoes, we continued to discuss the original issue at hand: Why pine? How did that happen? I had a feeling that I used to know, and that it had something to do with Pagan symbols or something, but then maybe I was getting easter eggs and xmas trees mixed up. So out came the Crackberry and onto Wikipedia I ventured. But guess what? I still don't have a satisfactory answer. Partially because Wiki pages are full of crap, and partially because the Wiki explanation of the origins of the Xmas tree was SO BORING that I completely lost interest before we'd left the gravel road of the tree farm.

And now, sitting in front of my tiny cute (bushy) tree, I totally don't care anymore. Pass the eggnog.

Ketchup, part 2: Trip to California, subpart A.

Trip to California: The Cemetery Visit.

My favorite Un-Niece, Hedrita. Joosh's older brother's daughter. She let's me call her "Cookie" just like the Jewish Tante I've always wanted to be.

She and my youngest brother are the same age, and went to the same High School and according to what I have gathered on Facebook (The MyFace, I call it), they refer to each other as cousins. But if Joosh and I actually did get married, she'd be my niece (by marriage, but still) and my brother would be... her uncle-in-law? My brother would be Joosh's Brother-in-Law, and Joosh is her uncle, so wouldn't that be it? Uncle-in-Law? Maybe they'll have to stick with cousins. It'll be much more fitting for the day when they get drunk at a party and make out and I have to tease them incessantly by calling them "Kissing Cousins". God, I hope they don't find this blog. They will kill me.



On Sunday, the day after we arrived, I went with the not-in-laws to visit the family cemetery plots. Our friend ML here in Portland has been doing some Geneology research (she LOVES it, apparently - ask her about the Royal Family line, go ahead, I dare you), and Joosh's mom is in that sort of family reckoning stage of life, so armed with two notebooks and some vague plot numbers, off we went to the most beautiful, most glamorous, possibly the most would-be-expensive-land/ currently-occupied-only-by-dead-people-not-able-to-enjoy-the-million-dollar-view I have ever seen. Right on the bluffs at the edge of Santa Barbara, this no doubt used to be the outskirts of town. No longer. It is smack dab in the middle of Oprah territory, huge swaths of gravestone-dotted prime-ass real estate, totally gorgeous. Breathtaking.

First we went to the park where Jojo got married and had ourselves an old-fashioned picnic full of mayo and cookies and lunchmeat, etc. Char made fabulous hummus for her (shockingly) vegetarian brother (meat family, very very meat family) and the jackass refused to eat it. I found out later it was because he thought the roasted peppers were tomatoes, but that may or may not be the full truth of it, one never knows.

At the park, we totally annoyed some hippie dippie group of Food-Not-Bomb'ers having some sort of free-out in the center by the turtle pond. Apparently we sat down too close to their food collection area or something, and they kept looking at us with decidedly un-peaceful expressions. Peace and love kids, peace and love. Hopefully we redeemed ourselves when several homeless looking dudes came over and asked for food, saying they'd been told there was food to be had by the tree (all I saw were sacks of uncooked potatoes, by the way, and a fuck-off HUGE clear hefty sack of hard-tack looking bagels with a double knot at the top that people kept picking up and putting back down again). We gave them food, and they were excited.

Best moment by the tree: An adorably overeager college student came over and dropped a brown bag off on the other side of the tree (where the bagels and potatoes and oh oh, I forgot to mention the rotten looking bell peppers! were) and turned to us with a jaunty little informational sing song: "Butternut squash! From my garden! Organic! Tra la la!" Oh Peace and Conflict Studies peeps, how I miss you.

So up to the Ritz Carlton of cemeteries. It took us a while to find the right plots. In fact we had to flag down a groundskeeper. It was a Sunday, so the main office wasn't open, but there was a tour of some kind being led around the grounds. I was exceedingly annoyed by a super disrespectful woman wearing a green and black striped witches hat throughout the tour. Show some respect, lady, jesus. I seriously wanted to yell at her, but settled for sneering whenever she passed. I'm not sure if she noticed or not. It was sunny and there was lots of squinting, so I highly doubt it.

Here, for your amazement, are more cemetery photos (I'm obviously having trouble getting images to rotate, but it's too late at night for me to bother with it, so apologies for the neck cramp in case you care to turn sideways for viewing).











Bury me here please. Oh wait, I want to be cremated, or neptuned or something. So scatter me here, or in that beautiful sea off the bluffs from here. Or just think of me fondly when you pass by.

We managed to find both family plots, but there's a bit of a mystery about the Sprouls because there are 5 people listed on the records as buried in the plot, but only 3 names appear on the newer looking headstone, and the dates of birth and death appear to be off slightly. Hmmmmm.

At some point when I am feeling less "What am I going to do with the rest of my life" and more "Nancy Drew" I may attempt to get to the bottom of this like the super sleuth I know I can be in my heart of hearts. I suspect it will be a nice chunk of a novel one of these days, from all the stories I've heard so far. (And you thought YOUR family was bad?!?).