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!

What Kind Of Special Bus Rider Are You? Vote!

Thanks to Bex for this one. I am essentially too lazy to email five friends, so instead I'll post here, for my five friends to see for themselves.

Of course my five friends are truly the chorus to which I am preaching as I know y'all are already registered and ready to go, chomping at the bit to cast your ballot. Let's hope it counts.

Weirdest And Probably Least Significant Synchronicity Ever.

I just had the weirdest experience sitting here at my lovely computer perusing the latest news in the global financial titanic sinking mess of an election season (my favorite quote so far in my 7 minutes of surfing: "“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room." Very confidence inspiring, so eloquent).

Anyway, in my internet wanderings, I happened across this disgusting bit of indigestible information, in photo form:

This is a photo of a McD's hamburger. From 1996. No no, not the photo. The photo was taken recently. But the hamburger was purchased in 1996. No joke.

How totally disgusting is that? It reminds me of the Snoballs (yellow, by the way - is that not somehow very very wrong to color those suckers yellow? maybe not, cause who hasn't pissed in snow, right? but this, this can probably be considered wrong) that Sara from N&T gave me as a housewarming present in 2002, that still sit on my shelf today. They are dusty and the packing is getting a little swollen (outgassing?) but are nonetheless intact. I'm saving them for the apocolypse.

So I'm reading the accompanying article (tirade, really) about nutrition and how gross and chemical fast food is, particularly burgers like this self-preserving one, when I suddenly became aware of a song on the radio that I thought was just ambient vocalizing is instead starting to sound a lot like the word "hamburger" being chanted slowly and repeatedly. Funny, I thought. I must be thinking about the word 'hamburger' and thus imprinting that on these weirdo didgeridoo-like sounds being emitted from KCRW.com.

Um, no. Suddenly the slow mild string of low consonants and vowels changes and very distinctly prounounces a long guttural "Cheeseburger" several times in a row, followed by a line of "Big Mac Big Mac Big Mac" and I have a momentary out-of-body experience where I wonder if maybe I'm still asleep and dreaming? What's going on here. I'm looking at a hamburger and being serenaded by a supremely not-normal, not radio-worthy ditty: an ode to meat patties. What the hell? What is going on? Am I manifesting some kind of weird trip? Am I creating my universe? Where am I? I must be sleeping. This is too weird.

It only took a minute to snap back to reality and run off to the playlist feature at KCRW.com and discover that no no, they really were playing a song about the humble (lowly?) hamburger. It was just one of those odd coincidences in life, where two random pieces of your day line up perfectly and practically talk at you with a hammer-bang of consciousness. Usually these sorts of synchronicities have more meaning, however, and I feel like I glean something interesting from the awareness of whatever intersection is laying out before me. Hamburgers, however, I don't know. I am having a hard time figuring out what I am supposed to walk away with from this one-step-off-moment.

Any insight you can provide would be most appreciated. Here, go listen, then stare at the above photo while doing so. Let me know what you come up with.

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.

Dear Small World of Mine - A Treat for You.

Hurry up and go to this website and watch this video before the woman responsible for it yanks it and puts up something else.

Bite My Cookie.
http://bite-my-cookie.blogspot.com/

BMC, whose web site you'll visit by clicking above, is one of my favorite ladies in Portland. She is fierce, a firecracker, a connector, a scrape-the-lining-of-her-insides-out-for-you-if-you-need-it, a ball of energy and chaos and giant-hearted snark. She's funnier than sin. She has the most adorable family (this is heresay, or blogsay, I guess, as I've not actually met them yet) and a neverendingstory of stories to tell that will make you cry with hysteria. Also, she makes the best cookies in all the land. Hopefully she's going to have a rad website selling these cookies in the next week or two (if someone you know and love can get her ess-aytch-eye-tea together ay-ess- ay-pee).

In the meantime, she's just had the ultimate crapperfull of a hellish experience in business wherein all of her talent and energy and huge vats of effort got swallowed up by The Man (in the collective patriarchal sense, as well as in the penis-bearing-personage pissing absurdities on a years worth of bloodsweatmoneytears sort of way). I think she's trying to sit still for a moment, water the roots at the base of the pruned bush, so to speak, gather her strength for the next thing. But in the meantime, she offers periodic treats on her site, but just like the incredible cookies she bakes, you've gotta run and get em while they're hot. I can't guarantee that what you'll see when you click above will be the video to which I am directing you, but hey, don't shoot the messenger.

So go, run, click, do it. BMC recently took down her archives, which were time-suckingly entertaining (and which I used to read long before I met her at work by happenstance one day, long before I realized that she was BFFs with an LA blogger, Rebecca Wolf, long linked on this site that I'd been reading for months and months.) Anyway, you unfortunately will not have the honor of experiencing those BMC, days-gone-by, belly-laughing posts, but please, please please go watch her darling 4 year old give a life lesson about what it means to be four. It is beyond precious, absolutely sums up four years old - and the important bits of life in a nutshell, really - in under a minute and a half.

Ps - I got two hours of sleep last night, due to an early morning airport run for Le Mama and some damn inconvenient insomnia involving a terribly unnecessary late night fixation on h'ors d'oeuvres (because I am retarded) for this weekend's shower-to-end-all-showers for our darling Joj, so please forgive if this entire post makes no sense, which I suspect it may not, but am too wiggy to double check. Bottom line, go watch the vid - I can't imagine you'll be sorry.

So Pretty Much The Same Methods Apply For Governing As For Grooming...