One Size Fits All

Today I spent $40 on the following produce:Garlic stems, cherry tomatoes, beets, raddish, strawberries, peas, bok choy, mushrooms, string beans and cucumbers. Zucchini season has begun…but I didn’t get any. No new plastic entered the house with the purchase. Picture below:

This year I’m trying to reduce how much money I spend at the market. I don’t have a set number in mind, but I want to get the cheapest of whatever I’m getting. One way I am doing this is by taking a walk through the market and checking out the prices and doing a mental comparison before I buy anything.

Yesterday I bought 80 oz of honey for $20 and milk, cheese (goat and cow), butter, kale, potatoes, onions for $32.77. The cheese alone was $18.80. I will be making yogurt and paneer with the milk. I get the milk from the farmstand because I can return the bottle for my bottle deposit. And the bottle is made of glass.

I’ve been reading Chile’s archives as my role as a bean stalk (thanks Chile!) and was reminded of some challenges that were presented last year. Specifically, Crunchy’s no TP challenge.

Now that its been a year since I began blogging, I should probably write about why I chose to blog anonymously (as anonymous as one can be online anyway).

I had been looking for a blog that discussed two main topics that I am somewhat obsessed with: money and environmental issues. And I wanted to read detail. I wanted salary info, grocery tabs, tips, online articles, etc. I didn’t find that blog, so I started the blog I wanted to read. And quite frankly, I like reading my blog very, very much. 

When I heard about the no TP challenge I wondered if I ought to admit that I didn’t use TP or even cloth wipes. One of the reasons I didn’t admit anything was because I still had mental scars from my initial days after I immigrated to the U.S. and was still open and vulnerable to criticism. As a new immigrant, I used hankies for snot (no matter how thick the snot was). I used my bare hand to wipe my bottom (with some water). Because that was how I was taught to clean up after doing my business in the toilet (which in my family was referred to as "london". There is also an open sewer in Madras that is referred to as Buckingham Canal…but this is getting a bit off topic).

So when I blew my nose into my hanky, I had to listen to the "ewws" and the "gross" comments. And since I was lonely and depressed and trying to fit in, I slowly switched to using tissue for my nose. It was a slow process because I couldn’t figure out how to use facial tissue. The material was flimsy and I often wound up with snot in my hands, and if I forgot to empty my pockets my clothes would be covered with a fine film of tissue particles. And I was very afraid of the Mr. Bean effect: a dangling bit of tissue hanging out from one nostril. But eventually I got the hang of using tissue for my nose and got into the habit of tossing it out after one use.

But try as I could, I could not figure out how to use toilet paper to wipe myself. Especially after #2. It was way more messy and I thought it was gross to not use water to wash up. And its a good thing that there were no judgemental people watching me clean up after myself, because that would have been too traumatizing. 

This non-tp use wasn’t a problem for a while. But then I started to make friends. Which led to invitations to spend nights or weekends over. Which led to panic attacks. Will they ask questions if I take a bottle or mug to the toilet with me? How do I explain this? So what did I do? I turned down the invitations. Not using tp was my dark dirty little secret.

Until I started to run across these online environmental bloggers. And note that while I am not a very affectionate person, I wanted to reach out and hug these people wanting to get away from TP usage.

Anyway…personally I think cloth wipes for #2 are a bit gross. Knowing how lazy I am, if I used wipes they would probably lie around being stinky and grossing me out. I like using my little bottle of water. Its most comfortable for me and I think the most hygenic. For first time users, you can always hop into the shower for a better clean if you don’t trust your left hand to do the job well.  

However….growing up in my parents house we had a bidet. It was only when I went over to grandma’s that I had to use the water-hand method.

As for me trying to fit in and be liked…I gave up on that idea a while back. I was very weird when I was growing up, and I am weird today. So I was pleasantly surprised to encounter all these people online blogging about stuff that I think about and used to be too scared to talk about for fear of alienating even more people. Sometimes I almost want to hug everyone, but then I remember my issue about touching people and the fact that I don’t actually know any of these bloggers. But I’ll give a little online *hug* to everyone on my blogroll, for making me feel really warm and fuzzy inside (the sangria I’m drinking now has also contributed to that feeling).

Its probably weird to be giving thanks to my bloggy friends in a post about toilet habits…but if all this peak-oil/sky-is-falling people are right, we might have to get close and intimate with our poo. And I guess environmentalists will be leading the way. 

After months of sitting around being nervous, I can finally admit that I have found success with the Diva Cup. I’ve been using rags (that are glad) for about 2 years and every month the entire process of getting in touch with my womanhood is a giant pain in the…well…you know.

Now I figured it out. And it is easy like arduous and crunchy chicken said it was. So yay!

Now I have a giant bowl of vegan vanilla ice cream topped with strawberry syrup to comfort me while I try not to die from the cramps.

I finished reading Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy as part of my participation in Green Bean’s May Bookworm challenge which is now going to continue into the month of June. As I mentioned before on this blog and on other blogs, this book was very thought provoking and shattered many of my preconceived notions about garbage and landfills.

I actually picked this book up by accident. The title caught my interest, and after picking it up and opening the book I found myself sitting cross legged on the floor of the library amazed at what I was reading. I am not sure what it is about garbage that fascinates me…but its related to my fascination with suburbia. Let me explain.

A few years back, I read "Building Suburbia" by Dolores Hayden that gave me an incredible insight into the growth and popularity of the suburbs. The book focused primarily on American suburbs, but the idea of a suburb was originally a British one that was later imported. Prior to reading Building Suburbia I had an incredible hatred of what suburbs stood for. I hated the fact that they were unwalkable, that they tended to be homogenous in every way imaginable, that they were inaccessible by trains and buses and I hated the culture that surrounded it - a sort of blandness that bugged me to no end.

One of the original ideas behind a suburb was the idea of having green space and empty clean, hygenic looking spaces. A livable area where one could pretend to live close to nature - and most importantly, a place that was not as dirty as a city. Before governmental agencies were established to take care of garbage and the general maintenance of cities, the cities were filthy. Horses died and rotted in open gutters, people tossed their garbage outside their homes by just flinging it outside their windows. In short, the urban environment was a festering mess of dirt and disease. Not exactly a place one would want to live in. With the invention of the combustion engine, travel to places outside of the city became possible. Wealthier families were able to live outside the filthy cities and enjoy breathing clean air. With the invention of street cars or trolley cars, commuting for work became a feasible option for many people. This later lead to the expansion of the automobile industry which lead to the desire to live further and further away from the dirt and grime of the cities. There are other reasons for the growth of the suburbs of course…but for now I’m going to focus on people’s desire to get away from dirt and grime.

So Building Suburbia shed light on a relatively modern view of people dealt with garbage, but I wondered how people dealt with garbage before the invention of automotive engines when one couldn’t just commute from a suburb. Well…here is an excerpt from Rubbish that describes the garbage habits of the residents of Troy (i.e. in the B.C. era):

The archaeologist C. W. Blegen, who dug into Bronze Age Troy during the 1950s, found that the floors of its buildings had periodically become so littered with animal bones and small artifacts that "even the least squeamish household felt that something had to be done." This was normally accomplished, Blegen discovered, not by sweeping out the offensive accumulation, but by bringing in a good supply of fresh clean clay and spreading it out thickly to cover the noxious deposit. In many a house, as demonstrated by the clearly marked stratification, this process was repeated time after time until the level of the floor rose so high that it was necessary to raise the roof and rebuild the doorway.

I paused for a very long time after I read the above para. It was a WTF moment for me. 

Rubbish has many such passages about ancient cultures and their garbage habits. But the book for the most part discusses compostion of landfills and various experiments conducted by Garbologists (people who root around in garbage under an academic banner) and the results of their analysis of the analyzed garbage. I found it surprisingly insightful. I, like many others, had the impression that landfills were filled with disposable diapers and plastic bags and tires. But the reality (at least in the 80s and 90s - when the analyses were done) is that "two kinds of garbage - paper and construction and demolition debris - account for well over half of America’s general refuse." I imagine that that number went up even further from the housing construction boom that seems to have ended recently…but that fact also surprised me. But on second though…demolition debris is a lot more voluminous then yogurt cups and disposable diapers. And I can’t imagine a thriving industry that reuses demolition debris especially with the risks with lead paints and so on.

Toward the end of the book, the authors made many suggestions regarding how garbage output could be reduced and I liked three of their suggestions. One was to incentivize the task by having people who put out a lot of garbage pay more and vice versa. Another suggestion was to encourage composting in households since removing food waste from landfills will result in something useful rather. The third suggestion that I liked was to encourage the purchase of products made from "post consumer recycled" materials. Ideally the product would have 10% or higher of post consumer recycled goods.

I could write a book detailing how useful and insightful I found Garbage. But instead I’ll suggest that you read it and I’ll end with another quote that cheered me up:

Over time, grand civilizations seem to have moved from efficient scavenging to conspicuous consumption and then back again to the scavenger’s efficiency. It is a common story, usually driven by economic realities. 

Now that global warming is probably a reality, brown is in! Tan is cool

We’ve finished all our white goods: flour, rice (sushi, jasmine, basmati). So we’ve switched to brown stuff: whole wheat flour, brown rice. Brown rice isn’t available in bulk bins and since I don’t want to buy several pounds like I normally do (because of our move that will happen in a few months), I bought them in prepackaged plastic bags. The bags are reusable ziplocs…so its not too terrible since the bags can be reused.

I baked bread using whole wheat and for some reason its a bit dense (didn’t rise much in the oven). I didn’t think there would be changes with switching flour, but I’ll play around with the dough the next time I make bread.

The rice I bought was from Lunberg’s, a company based in California and one that follows all the goody-goody policies that I appreciate. The rice I bought was a short grain rice and the cooking time was a bit longer than jasmine rice. The taste is slightly nutty/chewy which I like.  

Another excerpt from Secrets of the Temple:

New money was created not only by the Federal Reserve but also by private commercial banks. They did it by new lending, by expanding the outstanding loans on their books. Routinely, a bank borrowed money from one group, the depositors, and lent it to someone else, the borrowers, a straightforward function as intermediary. But, if that was all that occurred, then credit would be frozen in size, unable to expand with new economic growth. On the margins, therefore, bankers expanded their lending on their own and the overall pool of credit grew - and the bank credit turned into money.

A bank officer authorizes a $100,000 loan to a small-business man - a judgment that the businessman’s future earnings will be sufficient to repay the loan, that his enterprise would create real value in the future, which would justify the risk and the creation of the additional money. Ordinarily the banker would not hand over $100,000 in dollar bills. He would simply write a check or, more likely, enter a credit in the businesman’s bank account for $100,000. Either way, money has been created by the simple entry in a ledger. Implausible as that might seem, it was a reality that everyone would accept, even if they were unaware of its audacity. The businessman would go out and spend the money, writing checks on his new account, and everyone would honor their value. The creation of new money, thus, was really based on bank-created debt. This concept is what baffled and outraged so many critics of the money system. Money ought to be "real," they insisted. It should be based on something tangible from the past, accumulated wealth like gold, not on a bankers hunch about the future.

I believe a commenter on Boston Gal’s Open Wallet had recommended "Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country". I started reading this book a few days ago since its due back at the library next week (I’ve already renewed it past its limit). The book is over 600 pages along but its a fantastic and very informative read. The author, William Greider, describes the spiritual malaise that usually precedes a huge change. Karen Armstrong also wrote about this general discontent that more or less led to the founding of the religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. According to Secrets of the Temple, many people are suspicious of the motives of the Fed primarily because its a large, secretive body that has a great deal of influence over a wide variety of people. This lack of control and knowledge causes some to come up with…some sort of idea (however bizzare) to explain this entity. An excerpt that explains the theories of these people:

To modern minds, it seemed bizarre to think of the Federal Reserve as a religious institution. Yet the conspiracy theorists, in their own demented way, were on to something real and significant. Economics was the essence of scientific rationalism; the Fed’s analytical techniques were the opposite of metaphysical speculation. But the Federal Reserve did also function in the realm of religion. Its mysterious powers of money creation, inherited from priestly forebears, shielded a complex bundle of social ritual, transactions so powerful and frightening they seemed to lie beyond common understanding.

I think people seem to want a few things in life whether they are able to articulate it or not: happiness, cleanliness (as described by George Carlin) and some semblance of order and control over their own lives. When these desires are in any way threatened people try to regain those desires in a manner that makes sense to them.

Coming with ideas and believing them without a context of history seems a bit foolish. I don’t know what to think about the Fed. I have no idea what it is they actually do. Its seems a bit silly to be fearful of an entity if their presence has been a constant in one’s own lifetime. I can see fear coming arising from new things or developments…but something that is old?

I am just staking out my claim here.

It seems that people in the media love making predictions and I thought I should get in on the act as well. After all this blog is a medium.

So forget the Goldman Sachs and the future president’s predictions, I am going to make a prediction that is guaranteed to come true.

I, Beany, predict that the price of oil per barrel will one day in the future hit $1,000. 

You may send me your bank account information so I can invest your money to capitalize on this prediction of mine. Thank you kind sirs and madams. 

We got $1,200 per the economic stimulus package along with two mailed notices. One stated that we were going to receive $1,200 and one stated that we should have received $1,200.

We donated some of the money to charity, paid a little bit to husband’s student loan and saved the rest by splitting into our emergency fund and our L.A. moving fund.

In general I just don’t like spending money and thankfully, I married someone who is just like me in that regard. Usually, we spend money without guilt on food - especially raw materials. Perhaps its because of my general fear of financial uncertainty or maybe its other reasons that a psych major would have a field day analyzing…whatever it is, I cannot spend money for non-neccesities without a lot of mental anguish. I mean…I last purchased Oyin’s deodorant paste which is made from baking soda/kaolin clay/essential oils and categorized the purchase as one that was fun and frivolous. I guess I am living the stereotype that beancounters are not fun.  

Perhaps its because of sfordinary’s experience on her volunteer vacation or a confluence of other factors…but I’ve decided to relax a little bit and spend some money instead of obsessively saving every penny. This means I’ve started frequenting coffee-shops again. And this is an indulgence that I never get tired of.

I love coffee shops, especially ones where I can stay for hours reading or knitting or people watching or day dreaming. Coffee shops are the one public space I can visit by myself and stay in my little bubble without being hassled. The libraries here tend to attract patrons of the sleazy variety so I don’t spend too much time in libraries besides checking out books or returning them.

I love the smell of coffee and the general din that comes with a coffee shop atmosphere. I get exposed to new music in coffee shops. And for the most part I can stay very focused on a task (including day dreaming) in a coffee shop. I also get my creative juices flowing when I’m in a coffee shop. 

Really the only point of this post is to note down that I’ve quit being so stingy about money (for now) incase my future self wanted to look back to figure out when I began to change my views about money. 

So it seems that one of my favorite comicstrip artists moved to L.A.

I am a member of the philly car share service because there are times when I do need a car. In 2007 I drove once. That is I borrowed a car from the car share service and drove it for a few hours on one hot day in 2007. In 2006 I think I drove twice - once to make an impulse purchase of an air conditioner in the middle of August and once to move. The service offers pick-up trucks and I like driving them more than I like dealing with U-haul’s trucks. My plan with the Philly car share is the basic plan. That is I only pay when I use the car. So in 2007 I paid less than $40. It includes insurance and gas so its a fantastic option for me. The plan includes no recurring fees.

Flex car became a new car sharing option in the city either in 2007 or 2006. I immediately signed up because I like having choices. But for a long while flex car didn’t have pods where I wanted them to be. I am lazy so if a pod isn’t within 10 blocks of me, I don’t bother with the service.

Recently Zip Car swallowed/merged with flex car. And Zip car has been bugging me via email and mail to sign up. Since I am a procrastinator I didn’t bother doing anything about it. I also didn’t like the annual fee and sign up fee that was required to sign up. I don’t like recurring financial committments . 

Finally I got fed up and emailed zip car asking them to waive all fees since I barely drive. I asked that if they were not willing to waive the fees I wanted to be taken off their mailing list and my info not sold to other organizations. I got a response pretty quickly stating that the fees couldn’t be waived and that my info would not be sold and that I would be taken off the mailing list. So that was that.

Yesterday I received a voicemail from someone in the corporate office stating that, yes! The fees could be waived because I used to be a flexcar member. In other words the rules could actually be broken. Shocking!

This is actually good for because L.A. has zip car pods. Philly car share is still a cheaper option in Philly however, but for any car needs I might have in L.A., I will be using Zip Car. Unless another car sharing option establishes itself.

Today I made baked eggs with creamy leeks from Vegetarian Cooking by Linda Fraser. It was the first time I had leeks and I loved it! I topped it with crumbs made from the bread I baked yesterday.

I rode to the farmer’s market and only purchased from basil, garlic stems (?) and 4 quarts of strawberries. I used one quart to make smoothies using the yogurt I made yesterday.

I then baked some hazelnut biscotti from the Veganomicon cookbook. I didn’t have hazelnuts and the batter from the recipe was too dry so I used hazelnut liquor. I topped the biscotti with pecans.

Now I am making granola for this week’s breakfast. I added some flaxseeds to it. 

Several months after arduous suggested making a meatloaf for a dinner party, I’m finally going to make it for my husband’s lunch this week.

I’m also going to make some stir fried noodles (with buckwheat noodles) using whatever veggies are starting to get forgotten in the crisper.  

I’m also going to make some pesto for sandwich spreads and pizza toppings.  

Update: with pictures:

Granola

 

Strawberry Pie. I made the crust using the same local flour but added 1/4 cup of corn flour which made the dough easier to handle and roll out. For the topping, its the crumbcake style topping using flour, local butter, sugar, cinnamon and pecan nuts.

 

The purples things are purple cabbage. I also added snow peas(?), onions, sesame seeds a dash of sesame oil and soy sauce.

Today I made yogurt for the first time this year (the temperature was finally warm enough). I bought a small container of plain yogurt yesterday (for the culture) which did come in plastic.

I also made chocolate pudding from Vegan with a Vengence. I topped it with coconut flakes. So delicious.

And I baked bread using whole wheat flour from King Arthur and topped it with sesame seeds.  

I also made paneer…but since it was years (10 years?) since I last made it, I wound up with very little paneer cheese because I had forgotten the proportions. But I’m out of milk…so I am going to have to make more next week.

Went out for a lovely bike ride. There were few people out early on a Saturday morning, so the ride was perfect.

Degreased and greased my bike chains using a cloth napkin instead of old method of using paper towels. Now I’m soaking the grease filled cloth in an old pot of water and borax solution.

Currently in the process of cleaning out my harddrive clutter. I think I take too many pictures.

People on craigslist are flaky. I think I might just give all our furniture away by putting it out on the sidewalk. 

 

I still cannot make a pretty pie. The filling is a mixture of strawberry jam (which I made), rhubarb  sauce (which I made), local maple syrup and arrow root powder added as a thickner. The flour is also local - a wheat pastry flour that was a pain in the neck to use. I finally gave up and made a patchy pie as I couldn’t roll out the dough without it falling apart.

I read a very well written and beautiful post recently that really made me think. Of course one of the reasons I related to the post is because I’ve felt like Megan many a time. And I’ve been at the other end of the spectrum unable to see someone’s point of view.

For example, unlike some people I know, I don’t get angry at the thought that some people are registered to vote under a different part than my own. I don’t get angry based on their choices on who (whom??) they vote for. I don’t get angry that my local politicians are behaving in a manner that I’ve come to expect of politicians - I am not let down. Basically politics bores me to tears. I think its like that debate over the FICO credit score…we have to pretend we care so we can do a bunch of nonactions while doling out time and energy and money. I see it as a nonissue…not worth getting annoyed over. And its odd how I’ve wound up with this state of mind. I remember practically frothing at the mouth nine or so years ago after reading the latest from Molly Ivins or The Nation magazine. However, I do get angry when people abuse children and/or animals. I do get angry that so many people drive and own cars in such an incredibly walkable city such as Philadelphia. And I get really furious when people play crappy music and subject me to listen to this crappy music.

I get very, very upset when people I respect pooh pooh my attempts to get rid of plastic in my life. It is apparently a very extreme measure not worthy of pursuing. Another person I respect decided to use Roundup on their yard and grow vegetables in that same yard. How could I articulate my thoughts, concerns and responses in a manner that wouldn’t alienate these people? How do I ask people to conserve resources, money and be kind to the planet when their biggest concern is which politician is going to be the next president or how their job is sucking the life out of them or how they’re going to afford their next ski trip?

When my friends get upset at the latest atrocity committed, why am I not as outraged? Well…I do get upset which is why I really limit my exposure to all forms of…current media, but does this mean I don’t care? If there is one thing I know about myself, its this: if I keep up with every single tragedy that happens on a day to day basis, I will not be able to function in society. I will get so depressed that I will be unable to do anything: eat, sleep, work, etc. I wouldn’t like myself to be that unfunctional person, so I choose what I read and what I see (to a large degree).

So in a nutshell, the way I can deal with these concerns is by letting go of my attachment (Buddha was quite wise), and Megan summarized her feelings as follows:

My less-than-stellar performance showed me that if I really want to fulfill my mission, I have to grow. We all do. If we want to create something new, we have to let go of what we think we know. That beautiful, elegant future we dream of? It lies outside the borders of the easy and the familiar. It is a brand new place whose gates won’t swing open to us until we learn to see and create in brand new ways.ﾠ

The question is: Can we lay down everything we think we are sure of and travel to that unknown land together? Are we willing to try and fail and try again?ﾠ