Spring Opens With Pink

Many things seem to be coming to a head right now. My Master Gardening course is complete and now I have to put in volunteer hours (if I want my certification). I did learn quite a lot in the class but I suppose I expected the class to be less about answering people's garden questions and more about answering my own. I wish that it had been less academic and more practical. Mostly the class was about using resources to find answers. (Like books, the Internet, and OSU publications.) Ah well. I did learn some botany that is not necessarily important to gardening (you could garden successfully for a hundred years without knowing exactly how the xylem works) but is never the less quite interesting.

Yesterday we finally signed our refinance papers. It is a week later than it should have been and until it funds I'm not going to discuss what's next or anything like that for fear of toppling my very fragile house of cards. Let's just say that we have been holding our breath around here.

I actually went to the gym this week for the first time in five months. And almost immediately felt my back going out. I haven't actually been laid up...but the threat is real. This ALWAYS happens. Either my back goes out or my ankle flares up (a medical mystery). Still, it felt good to go and put in some time.

The kittens seem to be improving. I say "seem" because they have lots of little bare spots (Pippa's whole chest is bare of fur- poor baby!) and Penny's stomach is still distended though they are both playful, have big appetites, and the bare parts of Penny's face have started to fill in with fur again so it seems that even if the ring worm isn't completely cleared yet, it's got it's marching orders at last. We take them in this morning to get the official word on their progress from the vet. Hopefully he'll tell us we can play with them soon because it's killing us all to not be able to interact much with them. They are terribly irresistible and the sooner we can ease into the whole dog introduction the better.

Spring is definitely here now. Officially. But I didn't need the official word to know it. When spring is officially here McMinnville turns pink. First with the ornamental (and fruiting) plum trees. Then with the pink dogwoods trees (one of the only planting trends around here that I can get on board with) and then with the ornamental cherries. It snows pink blossoms and is just gorgeous.

I have to confess that the only non-fruiting tree I am tempted to plant is a pink dogwood. Mostly because I would like to be able to cut branches of them for vases in my house. I can't go around cutting up other people's trees so it makes sense to have my own. I don't like using up precious space that could be growing things I can eat, but I may make an exception in this case. Plus, dogwoods always remind me of my mom and the things I love about her. I don't think the pink ones are necessarily what she would choose. She planted a pretty dogwood in our garden in Ashland and it had delicate whitish green flowers. Still, for me it's got to be the pink ones.

The daffodils are all out now, plastering the landscape in bright yellow points of light. Wonderful! I've never lived in a place so widely and generously planted in spring bulbs.

I'm thinking that the next time I paint a living room I want to paint it red. I've never had a red room.* We haven't had lots of success with blues. I like greens a lot. We've had a Dustpan Alley turquoise blue for a kitchen and I might repeat that one. But I like warm colors. I like yellow but have only done a bedroom in it. I do love the orange I did my studio in and might repeat that at some point. But the living room...I keep thinking of a rich color, but fresh cut flowers have to look good against it. I can always do green. But I feel like breaking out a little with something new.

This is where my thoughts are. The near future. It is near impossible to focus on the present.

Time to drink more coffee and write to a friend.
I hope you all have a wonderful Saturday!



*We've had a red ceiling before.

It's A Mad Max World Out There

What I've been wondering a lot about in the last couple of days is how come watching "Dark Angel" and "Firefly" doesn't depress me. They really should. The same way that "Blade Runner" should, but doesn't. I'll admit that I can't watch Blade Runner very often because it's too intense and darker than the other two shows I mentioned. "Mad Max" is so intense that I will not be ready to watch it again for another 11 years, but still, there's something about all those films and shows that I find oddly hopeful and appealing.

It has struck me while re-watching the "Dark Angel" series that it's not such an unrealistic view of the impending future. I mean, o-kay, I don't believe we're going to be over-run with genetically engineered super-freaks, but the way the world looks in that series, the scrabbling nature of life, the necessity for recycling (as opposed to the choice to recycle or not) as a way of life seems completely in sync with all probability. Waiting in a long line for two gallons of gas to get you to the next town...areas of cities blocked off permanently due to toxic contamination... everything you get being old and used and having to learn to make it work... the grime... squatting in abandoned housing (there are lots of people who have to do this now, what if that was the common housing solution?)...

I think what appeals to me about Firefly is the same kind of futuristic vision, where life goes so forward that it also doubles backwards. The future isn't going to look shiny and robotic as Asimov liked to see it. Covered in clean machines. As much as I think that Joss Whedon tends to see through the eyes of a hormonal teen boy (breasts, people, hot babes with breasts), I think the world he created in Firefly has an organic element to it that reflects a hopeful view of a hard future. Even he kind of describes it as a mixture between a science fiction and an old western. I love that the crew of the Firefly can take old parts to other ships and make them work for their own. Theirs is a kind of happy scavenging way of getting by. Life is tough but they enjoy the scrapping.

So I've been thinking a lot about the world in it's current state and extrapolating how things might turn out. I know that lots of people fear (and some hope) for an Armageddon type situation. Whether it be that God shakes his angry fist at us and floods us all to Kingdom Come or that man wields his mighty nuclear power and blasts the bejeezus out of the planet. People love to imagine huge chaos, it feeds the wilderness in them. It seems so much more satisfying than a slow decline in which we all die of environmental disease and starvation. The Victorians may have found glamor in the slow death that is consumption*, but modern people don't want their tragedies to be so slow and wistful.

My main thought is that it doesn't matter if you "believe" in global warming or not. You can tell yourself all kinds of lies about how no one can really be sure if oil spills on the ocean are really the fault of mankind or nature...I mean, couldn't those poor birds and fish have accidentally jumped into an oilfield and poisoned themselves? As for those ice caps melting? Does anyone really have any proof? I mean, proof other than the measurable shrinkage of the ice caps? Maybe scientists have made mistakes and their measurements are faulty. Because, it's not like the earth has ever had serious climactic change before. That whole ice age thing? That's just something Satan made up to trick good Christians into doing the devil's work...

But seriously. Global Warming aside, life will not go on indefinitely as it is now. Your hummer will not continue to run for all eternity. Pollution is not something liberals made up to try to run the world. Pollution is something you can smell with your own nose and see with your own eyes. You have but to visit your local land fill to see the truth in the claim that we are trashing the planet, one big pile at a time. I am amazed that arguments are still going on about whether it's necessary to recycle. Arguments seem to hinge, for many people, on whether or not global warming is real, but forget about global warming. In Los Angeles there are days when people are advised not to go out because the smog is dangerous. Hello, is that not indication enough of the need to clean up our acts globally?

The fact that people are being warned not to eat fish that come from certain locations because the fish have been proven to have mercury poisoning? Is anyone still arguing that those fish may have been poisoned randomly by non-human means? That it may not be our fault that the ocean is full of nasty minerals and chemicals that weren't there before we came along?

Part of my thoughts for today are being influenced by a long piece I read by Stephen Fry last night about a brangle he got in with an American man who isn't sure he "believes" in global warming. An oilman. It was really a fascinating post and brought up some really good points. If you have three hours to read it, do so, because it's also pretty funny.

The world is changing. It's been changing ever since it came into being. It changes due to many factors, but always with reference to what's going on on it's surface. The dinosaurs used to roam the earth. But they ate through their viability, apparently, and they became the fuel that is currently running our species at top speed towards it's own viability limits. It's kind of ironic actually. The fossilized flesh of another big group of beings is currently propelling human beings ever faster towards their own doom. Or whatever the future holds.

We are all connected. The only way anyone can think that humans have not had a huge hand in the current changes we are seeing on the planet is if they truly believe they live in a vacuum. That there is no connection between them, other people, the surface of the earth, the air they breath, the food they eat, and the relationships they espouse. Everything and everyone are connected. You may not like me (and why would you?) but you and I breath the same air. So if I shit all over your air, I'm shitting all over my own air too.

There's so much hopelessness being felt among those who see clearly what's happening and where humans are headed. Yet, while watching Dark Angel and Firefly, I can't help but see that even though things seem to be deteriorating faster than any of us can fix it all, there is a new kind of possible life emerging. Maybe there's some beauty to what the future holds. For those of us who are learning to make changes at a comfortable pace right now (while there's still time), the future will hold less discomfort and desperation than it will for those who refuse to see what's coming at all. Those people who don't engage in change now will be in an acutely uncomfortable situation when the oil finally runs dry. When living the good life means having some life skills like growing some food of their own, or fixing what's broken, or sewing their own blankets.

I care about people. Even people who obstinately remain blind and disconnected. So it isn't my mission to bash the environmentally blind in the head. Compassion will be called for in the future.

I think it's more important that those of us who see clearly and are trying to make positive change keep at it. Keep developing our scrapping skills. Learn to use what we have and buy less new. Learn to grow more of our own food, while supporting farmers who are farming in a sustainable way. Let us not lose hope. Let us support each other in learning to acquire the skills we'll need to get by as the world continues to change. Somehow, the rest of the world will follow eventually because they will have no choice.

If I have to live in a future that is darker than the present, let it be filled with hot people like Max and Logan who find junk on the heap and turn it into useful tools. If life isn't going to be easy, let it at least be smart and virile like Mad Max's world where every drop of water counts and you don't ask "should we take our private jet to see the show?" because there are no private jets and you will walk across the desert with no water and you will survive because that's what's called for. Maybe my favorite view of the future though is Joss Whedon's view of it in Firefly. Where there is still beauty, there is still camaraderie, people still have good marriages sometimes, and there is humor.

By the way, (in case you were wondering) if I could be any character on Firefly I would be Kaylee. I'd like to be Zoe, obviously, because of her kick-ass fighting skills and her total unquestionable babe-ness, but I would never be able to carry off the leather vest. Let's face it, even when I was a thinner person my rack was never able to impress me. I was always the sidekick to hotter girls, I was the one that most men (besides Philip) overlooked.

Am I complaining? Hell No!! After all, I got Philip.

It's a Mad Max world out there already, we just have to catch up.

*Now-a-days known as tuberculosis.

The Unknowable Future

I'm fast forwarding a bit to a better time in my life. I was a wee twenty-two years old. (I promise I won't talk about fat or diets for a while. At this point every one must be just about as tired of my ass as I am.) I was living in Corte Madera with three room mates. I was costuming with my friend/room mate Autumn Adamme. We started a company together called Dark Garden. At least, at the time I considered us business partners. Time would reveal that I was basically Autumn's contract sewer/drafter. She's still in business for herself and doing really well, though her business has changed quite a lot since I was working with her.

As you can see for yourself, Autumn is still completely untouched by time, gravity, or immoderate food and drink consumption. She's going to be a hottie when we're both eighty years old and I'm spitting my dentures out every time I talk and have to continually shove my left eyeball back into its socket. I work really hard to not resent her for having so much self discipline.* Anyway, in the picture above I am pretty happy all in all. I loved the costuming, though I burnt out within a year of this photo. I'm headed for a professional as well as a personal epiphany. I'm about to discover that the entire world is out there for me to explore. I had previously only considered fashion, costuming, and writing as possible life paths.

I suddenly realized I could go be poor with Irish people in Ireland and write really bad poetry. I was already writing the really bad poetry and I was super poor, so why not go somewhere new to do it? Or I could become a cruise director. This was a really vibrant fantasy of mine that I would dream about while drinking wine in our covered porch. I love uniforms. I let myself dream up every crazy possibility and it freed something in me. It was the first time in my life that I realized I was at the helm of my own ship.

I was also coming to terms with the fact that I would forever be the friend of hotties like Autumn who have horrifyingly small feet and that all the men I would ever date would talk about her small feet to me as though they were precious pearls.** This sounds so sad. For a while I felt really sorry for myself. Just because I have giant normal sized feet doesn't make me less mysterious and sexy than other women. (It's actually the verbal vomit that dispels all mystery and makes my sex appeal magically vanish.) But I started to realize that I could live a really happy life without a partner. It took longer to make myself believe this than I expected. Yet I learned to relish my untangled personal life. I started planning my life with forty cats.


The person you see in the picture above would have been very surprised to find these things out about her future self and life:

• That she would not only not be single at forty (knock on wood), but that within a year of this photo being taken, she would be married.

• That her dignity could be so disposable.

• That she would get not "fat", but FAT.

• That she would give birth to the next great American dictator.

• That she would still not be a published author at the age of thirty-seven touring Paris coffee houses smoking filterless Drum cigarettes.

• That Beyonce, Mandy Moore, Jamie Pressly, Elle McPhereson, and Gwen Stephani would all become fashion designers before her.

• That she didn't die already. (Though, by this time my faith in my ability to live past thirty was considerably improved)

• That she would turn out not be an urban girl at all but a small town chick with a hankering for more dirt. Always dreaming of more dirt.

• That she will buy and sell several homes.

• That she will become a housewife instead of a femme fatale type man killer.

• That she will learn to enjoy math and discover its romantic side.

• That she will piss a lot of people off.

*I still consider her a good friend. I don't actually resent her at all.


**I knew Philip was the right man for me when he failed to be enchanted by Autumn's magic feet and thought they were not as charming as my large normal ones.