Clothesline and Clothes Pins

Day 256: Clothesline and Clothes Pins

Sun streaming through bright white sheets. The breeze making a line of shirts and pants dance, catching a woman's long dark hair, shaping her skirts to her slender legs. Children playing hide and seek amid sweet-smelling, clean laundry. A clothesline.

At the eco-resort where we stayed in Costa Rice, tourists were invited to hang their wet things on nature's clothes drier: hemp rope strung between cedar posts. What could be an easier way to reduce your environmental footprint than to let nature do the work? Isn't there something supremely absurd about using fossil fuels to perform osmosis?

In theory, yes. In fact, what could be more irritating than attaching 50 socks to a clothesline, returning four hours later and having to reattach them because the inside didn't get dry? What would more uncomfortable than stiff sheets off the line? What could be heavier than a laundry basket full of wet clothing? What could be more time consuming than waiting for laundry to dry? What could be more embarrassing than having your stained old bras and underwear visible to every passenger vehicle that drives down Packard Road? What could be more frustrating than a twisted and bent line that keeps sliding down the tree to which it's affixed, dipping your formerly clean clothing in leaf mold? And what could be easier than pivoting your torso to shift the clothes from the washer to the drier?

I comfort myself with the thought that hanging my clothes on the line will not buy the Earth and all its species one more minute, not unless my neighbors start doing it too. And their neighbors, and theirs, and theirs. I hung my clothes on the line for several years, and no one followed suit except Jess - and I'm guess she would have done so, with or without me.

Perhaps if I had a better set-up. A pulley system that would allow me to stand on the back porch and pull empty line towards me, so that I wouldn't have to move a step stool, for example. An apron full of clean new clothes pins. A secluded backyard.

But I have none of these things. All I have is this old clothesline, which fell to the ground a few days ago when our fence got knocked down in a wind storm. Will I pick it up, untangle it, sort out the broken clothes pins and start over? Or will it be one more casualty of the stuff project?

Need you ask?

Monocular

Day 255: Monocular

Today was a food day. A morning spent picking up my eighth of a grass-fed cow with my sister and Joe, a convergence of several aspects of my life: staff members from the Botanical Gardens, from the Bentley and from my extended family. A finger-chilling activity, splitting up 700 pounds of frozen meat.

Next, baking cake. and brownies Cake! Emma turns eighteen (eighteen!) on Wednesday. Her first birthday away from home.

Tonight will be an odd birthday celebration. Cake first at 5 pm, immediately followed by dinner. That's so my brother and sister-in-law can have their dinner date, have Emma as their babysitter, and eat cake in honor of her birthday. The upside is that I get to tell the kids that they can only have brussels sprouts if they eat all their cake. The downside is that the house smells like brussels sprouts instead of cake.

Today I'm getting rid of the  monocular that I bought for my trip to Kenya, over twenty years ago. My brother was living in Kenya at the time, teaching at an American school mostly for embassy kids and other expats. The monocular seemed like a brilliant idea, because I'm blind in one eye. Why carry the extra weight of a pair of binoculars when all I do is close my left eye anyway? Monoculars are hard to come by; I bought this one in a pawn shop in the Tenderloin. I haven't used the monocular since that trip to Kenya, but it still seems like a really good idea. That's why I haven't gotten rid of it. But I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and it's causing me to question why I'm holding on to things that represent ideas that are better in concept than in fact. I even carried this monocular around in the side pocket of my car for a few years, thinking it would come in handy on road trips. But I just never used it.

Maybe the monocular is an emblem of the transition of my relationship with my folks, from being a kid asserting my independence to being a grown-up who doesn't mind spending some time hanging out with her parents. I spent a week of my three weeks in Kenya with my parents, on safari in Masai Mara, and it stands out as one of the most outstanding trips of my life. Everything about Kenya was awesome. The animals, of course. Seeing African animals in the wild was beyond anything I'd ever imagined. I'd just spent a few months working in San Diego on a performance audit for the Sheriff's Department, and we'd visited the San Diego Zoo more than one. The San Diego Zoo is lauded for recreating the animals' wild habitat, but of course, the true wild habitat is nothing like the San Diego Zoo.

And the Masai people, with their rheumy eyes, their manure huts, their ringed villages that help keep the lions out. The lack of health care, the lack of vegetables, the lack of clean water. The feeling of lawlessness in Nairobi, with its rampant poverty, people hanging off the outsides of the little private busses, cars running stop signs (and people getting killed because of it), potholes in the roads, police officers pulling you over to demand bribes, children out of school, children out of shoes, and pictures of the president in every establishment. How the whole thing awakened me to government, and how local government is where all the good things happen for us here in the United States. I've never complained about property taxes. Not once.

Anyway, that trip marked my first adult trip with my parents. I was reminded of it today, with Emma in the kitchen, cheerfully helping me bake and ice her own birthday cake. It pleases my sensibilities somehow that Emma will be able to vote in the next election. Tomorrow, she'll pack up the clean clothes she washed herself, and drive herself off to college once again, where she'll celebrate her birthday away from home. On Wednesday. Eighteen.

Scissors, Name Badge Holder, Stapler, Staples and Garage Door Opener

Day 254: Scissors, Name Badge Holder, Stapler, Staples and Garage Door Opener

Black Friday. Sam and I spent a couple hours at the mall this morning looking for Timberland boots because he says the Bean boots we bought last winter are too small. We went to five stores: Macy's, Von Maur, J.C. Penney's, Foot Locker and one other (I forget which). Under normal circumstances, I would avoid the mall on Black Friday at all costs, but we hoped that the boots he wants would be on sale.

You can imagine the scene. Cars stopped in the aisles, waiting for parking spaces to be vacated. Perfume saleswomen with too much make-up, spritzing unsuspecting customers as they pass. Christmas music piping through the intercoms, not the Muzak version from my days at Kline's, but Frank Sinatra and Taylor Swift and Elvis Presley. Babies crying. Vendors offering massages and facials and iPhone repairs in the center booths. Long lines at Starbuck's, longer lines in the shoe department at Macy's. Polite midwestern shoppers, faces drawn with tension, apologizing when they bump into you, eyes glazed.

The dark spirit of Christmas. Black Friday.

Well, the boots Sam wants are $180, and they were not on sale. $180! For shoes the kid will probably only fit into for a year. The Skecher's knock-offs are $70, but Skechers just aren't the same. In the end, Rich and I decided against it.

It is surprisingly difficult to say no to a kid, harder, in a way, with a kid who doesn't argue. When Sam realized that he wasn't going to get the Timberlands, he quietly asked to go home, and I felt a little miserable.

In the car, I told him that Emma had struggled at Greenhills because of the pressure to wear expensive designer clothing, Greenhills being full of kids from wealthy families.

"But don't we have money?" he asked.

"Sure, but designer labels just aren't important to  me. That's not how I want to spend my money."

"But I'm in high school, and in high school, designer labels are important. It's important to me."

"But you're not spending your money. You're spending my money."

"Then why do we have iPhones instead of flip phones?"

"Because smart phones have a different function than flip phones. Skechers and Timberlands serve the same function."

"But the Timberlands are better quality."

"Yes, and if I thought you were done growing, that would be a great argument for the Timberlands. I might invest $180 in a pair of boots I thought you'd be able to wear for ten years. But not for a year."

A pause before the inevitable comparison. "Emma has Uggs."

"Yes, because Nannie got them for her for her birthday. It's the privilege of grandparents, if they so choose, to buy luxury items for their grandchildren. I might do the same for your kids someday. But that's not what parents do. At least, not what your parents do."

I told him that when Nannie was my mother, she wouldn't buy us designer clothes either. He had to hear the story about my sister, probably not for the first time, who so wanted a pair of Frye boots when we were in high school. My parents said she'd have to use her own money for that, so she got a job in the kitchen at Olga's. That was back when Olga's was in a converted gas station on the corner of State Street and Washington, where Buffalo Wild Wings is now. If I remember right, you stood in line and ordered at the counter, like a regular fast food restaurant. The floors were sticky, but we liked it because it was downtown and you could take the University bus there for free. Also, the pita was sweet and doughy. Anyway, Elizabeth got her job and bought herself those boots. She probably still has them.

All this as we are driving away from the mall, and the scarce parking, and the deep discounts, and the security guards and the milling crowds with their shopping bags and designer boots. I told Sam I'd be sending some of the money we didn't spend on Timberland boots to Food Gatherers, because people are hungry right here in Washtenaw County, the day after Thanksgiving. I'm sure he wasn't comforted, but he didn't complain. I think that's saying a lot, for a 16-year-old boy.

Asparagus Fern and Cactus

Day 253: Asparagus Fern and Cactus

I stumbled upon this while walking along
the Huron River near the Arb. Lovely.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Free of commercialism, there's no reason for ambivalence. The food is whole and healthy. With no religious content, it is devoid of divisiveness, and yet every religion on Earth has gratitude at its core. It is a moment to cultivate contentment. It is a deep breath.

I've had to let go of a lot of things these past few months: my bees, my chickens, my daughter. Today, more on that theme: after only four weeks in the house, the asparagus fern and cactus are already starting to die. Happily, my mother has agreed to take them in. Each time I've had to let go of something, someone has taken over for me, happily, cheerfully, gratefully - not at all as if I was passing along a burden, but as if I'm passing along a treasure. Colleagues, family, teachers, friends. What a reason for gratitude.

I made a tapestry a few years ago called "Mother o' Pearl's Blessing and Miracles." There are so many, it was hard to choose. Clean water and central heat. Vaccinations. Food on the table. Night sounds. Spring. Rich's sense of humor. My tall black boots. Hand-me-downs from my sister. My dog, my garden, butterflies and birds. Music, and love, and Rich's sense of humor. A changing moon.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

- Walt Whitman

Wine Corks

Day 252: Wine Corks

We don't drink wine, or at least not much. We never have more than a bottle on hand; the bottle we have now is from weeks ago, the last time we had guests for dinner. If we do open it, it's unlikely we'll finish it. After a few days, it will become cooking wine. I think it's okay to get rid of these five wine corks. We still have three prettier ones in the cupboard. 

Emma Jane says I'm grasping at straws.

Casserole DIsh

Day 251: Casserole Dish

Sometimes when you let something go, it comes back. Today Emma Jane is coming back, at least for Thanksgiving. I'm leaving in a half an hour.

And so we kick off the holidays. It seems an apropos time to get rid of a casserole dish. I got this one as a free gift with a Bank of America savings account I opened in San Francisco in 1987. I've used it very little ever since my sister handed down a set of retro Corningware to us a few years ago. Getting rid of this will open up a little space in our cupboard.

Food is the theme for the coming days. The holidays certainly provide much food for thought. If anyone would like to guest blog during this time, I would welcome hearing your voices about stuff and the holidays!

Whistle

Day 250: Whistle

I read an interesting article in the New York Times about people who visit every Disney park. There are fourteen, in places as far flung as Tokyo, Paris, and Orlando.

The article was surprisingly relevant to the stuff project. It quoted a professor at Oxford, author of "Understanding Fandom, who said that people love to collect, and that "obsessive niche travel" (as he called it) is a form of collecting.

Question: is getting rid of one thing every day for a year a form of collecting experiences? Now there's a paradox. Almost on a par with Spock speaking to his younger self in the most recent Star Trek movie.

I'll take it even deeper. Some people collect the experience of collecting experiences. Like A.J. Jacobs, who wrote The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible AND The Know-It-All: One Man's Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World AND My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Quest to Improve Himself AND Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Quest for Bodily Perfection. A.J. (the recipient of the only fan letter I've ever written - and he answered!) actually transformed himself and his life for each of these experimental years, at great cost to himself and his family. In The Year of Living Biblically, he never shaved his beard for God's sake! (Get it? For God's sake?)

A.J. Jacobs was the inspiration for this blog. His agent even said she might be interested in helping me find a publisher for a memoir about this year. I'm not sure how that will pan out. So far nothing I've done is cutting anywhere near as deep as not using zippers and stoning adulterers. Even so, I've fantasized about what my next resolution will be after I finish this project. My current idea: a year of whole foods. So maybe collecting experiences is addicting, like the professor said.

A clinical psychologist in the article speculated that obsessive niche travel fulfills the need to feel superior. Do I feel superior? I hope not. That would be against my own religion, such as it is. We Unitarians-Universalists believe first in the worth of every human being, and second in justice, equity and compassion. Feelings of superiority are to be guarded against.

One obsessive niche traveler (i.e., somebody who was aiming to visit all the Disney parks) talked about completion anxiety: once you've invested a certain amount of time and effort in an endeavor, you don't want to cheapen it by giving up. Well, on day 249, with nothing but a whistle to give away, I can certainly relate to that.

Completion anxiety. Yeah.

Rain Barrel

Day 249: Rain Barrel
Do rain barrels really help reduce storm water runoff? Based on how instantaneously mine fill up, my guess is, no. It's certainly common wisdom that rain barrels represent green storm water management practices, but how much rain can mine be keeping out of the system if they fill up after ten minutes of heavy rainfall? And if it's a wet season like this last year - when reducing runoff might be especially useful - I won't be emptying it out before the  next rain because I don't have much need to water the garden.

As with so many other things, it seems I'm wrong. Preliminary EPA research indicates that rain barrels do help reduce runoff, by as much as 20%, in areas where at least 50% of the neighbors have them. They have the added advantage of giving my garden high acid water instead of high alkaline water, which my plants like because many of them are exotic ornamentals (yes, I admit it!), not bred for our high alkaline soil. This is like a Robert Parker rating of 98, only the price doesn't shoot up.

Using rain water in the garden also reduces the waste of clean potable water. Many rain barrels are simple repurposing of shipping containers that would otherwise become part of the waste stream. In short, there's really no downside to it.

However, this rain barrel is not doing anybody any good. See the gaping seam on the side? I bought from Whole Foods for $60 and liked it so much more than the $50 kit I bought from TJ at the botanical gardens. It's a nicer color. I should have known that anything TJ built would be a thousand times sturdier than an old olive container. TJ's rain barrels are made from soda syrup containers and don't have seams; that is the key difference.

Lesson learned: do not choose garden tools based on color.

Fish Wind Sock

Day 248: Fish Wind Sock
Our fish wind sock is a tiny little contributor to the trade deficit with China. We bought it on our first trip back to San Francisco after we moved to Ann Arbor. It has been a friendly placemaker on our front porch for many years, a point of reference and a bright spot. Such things aren't sturdy; one expect them eventually to become tattered and tossed away, like Kleenex in a pocket.

The U.S. Trade Overview by the Department of Commerce surprised me. I was surprised that the U.S. is the largest exporter of services in the world, and the second largest exporter of goods. The trade imbalance is improving. Exports comprise 30% of our GDP and support over 11M jobs. All that is quite different from the trade imbalance news that I'm accustomed to hearing, which generally pits the U.S. specifically against China. The U.S. Census, for example, reports the 2014 trade imbalance with China at $251B.

I am not an economic analyst, but all this raises a question in my mind about the usefulness of comparing two countries. Is international trade an arm wrestling match, with high stakes and a single winner? Or is it trick-or-treating, where the kids with the most motivation, the greatest speed and the latest curfew collect more candy, but everybody comes home with something in their plastic jack-o-lantern? No doubt, a smaller bucket of candy doesn't make a story.

Another interesting thing: the top three U.S. exports in 2013 were machinery, electronic equipment and mineral fuels. China's are electronic equipment, machinery and knit clothing. I picture shipping boats loaded with flat screen televisions passing each other in the Doldroms while the Chinese crank up the heat and Americans make do with warm sweaters.

Plastics ranks high on both the lists, and I suppose our nylon fish wind sock falls into that category. It's made of polymers anyway, just like plastics. I have often thought of Chinese factory workers making strange plastic items for export to the U.S. and other places. Now that I know plastics are big export items for both the U.S. and China, I'll need to expand my imagination to include U.S. assembly-line workers manufacturing little plastic bits that will disperse through the world like fireworks.

Speaking of which. Fourth of July fireworks may seem as American as the National Anthem, but 93% of our patriotic firecrackers are made in China.

Bird House

Day 247: Bird House

Winter is a pleasant thing when you work for a botanical garden and arboretum. Where before, you would grumble about gray skies and cold temperatures, now you welcome the long vistas, visible now with the leaves fallen from the trees. Where before, you would complain about all the things you couldn't do in the winter, now you welcome the things you can do. I don't mean things like cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, although of course those are fun too. I mean seeing for the first time a wasp's nest revealed in the upper branches of an oak tree you've passed a thousand times, like invisible ink under a flame. Or robins flocking like an extended family gathered for the holidays. Or animal tracks, crisscrossing the landscape like quilting.  Before, you thought winter lasted a full six months, starting at the first snowfall and continuing all the way through April. Now, you realize that autumn continues until the last leaves fall in December: you still have carrots and kale buried under the snow and organic matter for compost, if only the city hadn't stopped picking it up. Spring begins in February, when the first skunk cabbage pokes up through the wetland ice, a joyous harbinger in the chilly landscape.

Part of this, of course, is your co-workers. Usually it's right around Valentine's Day when the all-staff emails start coming. Somebody glimpsed the scarlet flash of a redwinged blackbird. The chickadees and cardinals are starting to sing. The stems of the red osier dogwood are bright red, almost glowing against the gray landscapes. The sap is running: somebody comes in with homemade maple syrup.

Birdwatching is excellent in the winter, birds bright as confetti and quick as falling water. Sam and I made this birdhouse years ago, in my dad's woodshop in the UP, out of scraps and hinges. No birds ever moved into it. We tried widening the hole with a two-inch drill bit - it was sized for sparrows - but with nothing for the bit to bite, the widening didn't take. It's been sitting outside on the ground for a few years, a disintegrating reminder of a pleasant afternoon many seasons past. My winter garden, with its seedy coneflower and swaying grasses, attracts birds better than any built object.

Bring on the cold. I'm ready.

Community High Jazz Band Treasurer Volunteer Job

Day 246: Community High Jazz Band Treasurer Volunteer Job

Silly me. I thought this would be a good year to expand my circle of acquaintances - and my professional contacts - by raising my hand for a couple of volunteer jobs. With Emma leaving for college and Sam getting a driver's license, I imagined that I would have a lot of free time on my hands. I picture sitting around at home, long empty evenings with nothing to do but feel a little empty, like a shallow pond at the end of a hot dry summer.

So I agreed to two things. I would serve on the board of directors of a small private K-8 alternative school, and I would be the treasurer of the Community High Jazz Band.

All this before I knew the University would hand me an entire second job as administrative director of another unrelated unit, a job that could very easily itself be a full-time job. I'm not complaining. I like challenge, and learning new things, solving new problems, helping people and getting to know them. But like any new job, it's tiring. Like speaking French for a day or a week or a month in Paris, before something clicks in your brain and all of a sudden, you understand passing comments on the street and telephone conversations and you are thinking and dreaming in another language. But before then, man oh man, you are tired. Nothing sounds better than a trip across the Channel and a conversation in your native tongue.

The Community High Jazz Band treasurer turned out to be so much more than I had thought. Not just reconciling a checkbook, but creating a system for collecting RSVP's on a major spring trip to music camp, then collecting, depositing and tracking parent payments, and addressing financial aid needs for the parents, and fundraising for scholarships to support the half dozen kids who need help to be able to attend.

To add insult to injury, Sam dropped out of jazz band before the school year even started. The kid plays the stand-up bass (very well, I might add). The program director is a saxophonist with a deep and abiding passion for Charlie Parker. Sam got assigned to learn one Charlie Parker solo too many. No doubt Charlie Parker is a master, but there are a thousand outstanding stand-up bass solos that will bring tears to your eyes. Learning a Charlie Parker saxophone solo on the stand-up bass is more like a hazing ritual.

I stuck with the treasurer role, though. I didn't want to leave the teacher in the lurch. I said I'd do it, and I wanted to follow through. But I began to realize it was too much. I set about accomplishing some intermediate steps - collecting the last of the initial payments, creating a fundraising team - and then I solicited among the parents for a new treasurer. I've got the last check in an envelope now, ready to go to the bank tomorrow. The parent board has voted, I've transferred the account signing privileges to the new treasurer and shared the last Google docs.

Nobody stepped forward to volunteer to be the fundraising chair. I won't give up on the fundraising until I know the money will be raised. $2,500. I believe that all the kids who want attend should be able to, regardless of how much money their parents have. Compared with the $2.5 million I'm trying to raise for a hiking-biking trail along Dixboro Road, I should have no problems.

RIght?

More Chicken Stuff

Day 245: More Chicken Stuff

Call me a pessimist, but I have lost confidence that the chickenkeeper from Craig's List is actually going to follow through on his promise to purchase my hens and their gear for $25. I sent him a text asking if he really intends to follow through on this deal, and got a one word response: Yes.

$25 doesn't mean much to me. I hate waiting, and missed appointments, and complex arrangements. I decided to take Joni's advice and give the chickens to our co-worker Judy, along with all their gear. So tomorrow, they're taking a car ride to the Botanical Gardens in a dog crate with newspapers lining the bottom. I'll give them the last of the bruised apples and the chemical-tasting off-brand vanilla wafers to entertain them, and I'll hang their water dispenser and feeder in the crate too. I have a feeling they'll get a steady stream of visitors all day.

Chicken Stuff

Day 244: Chicken Stuff

The Craig's List guy didn't exactly no-show.  He sent me a text saying he had to work late and had a game at 8, and could he come tonight instead? So here it is 6:15 and I'm waiting to hear from him for the second night in a row. Here's what I know about him: 

- he has an iPhone

- he has a salaried job and sometimes works late

- he likes to go to hockey games

- he plays a sport

- he has 70 chickens

- he responds quickly to texts and emails

- he lives or lived in the 517 area code district

- he doesn't always keep his appointments

It is about 15 degrees right now, and because I am planning on his sweeping the chickens and their stuff out of my life, I have not put out the water melter. I understand from my farming co-workers that chickens don't need water if there is snow on the ground.  There is snow on the ground, and it is my dearest wish never to put the snow melter out again because of the extreme hassle factor involved in running an extension cord 100 feet around the back of the garage and through the snow to the chicken coop.  I sincerely hope Joe Chickenkeeper shows up before the snow disappears and the temps stay low.

There seems to be a widespread belief among my friends and family that Craig's List respondents are, at best, flakes, and at worst, dangerous psychopaths whose goals in life involve getting you alone somewhere to murder you in cold blood, or getting your home address and schedule details so they can rob you blind, or sending you on wild goose chases to public places so they can laugh up their sleeves much as I did as a child after calling random phone numbers to ask "Is your refrigerator running? Better go catch it!"

I hope this guy is the real deal. Phone still hasn't rung.

Chickens

Day 243: Chickens

I am sitting by the phone, nervously awaiting a text from the guy who yesterday promised to come pick up the chickens and chicken gear today in exchange for $25. 

Last night, when I closed up the coop and sang "Good night ladies," and they made their little nestling clucking sounds in response, I told myself, "Last time." 

This morning, when I opened the gate to the chicken run and heard the "thump ... thump" of their leap from the perch to the floor, preparing to come out to greet me when I opened the coop and said, "Good morning ladies," I told myself, "Last time." 

When I got home at dusk tonight and heard their long, low, mournful greeting, and when I dumped the last of their food pellets in the feeder (they eat with the enthusiasm of labrador retrievers), and when I cleaned and refilled their water, I told myself "Last time."

All this has been quite pleasantly nostalgic, but the truth is, I'm desperately hoping this guy doesn't no-show. I haven't had an egg out of the ladies in over two months. I'm not prepared to skin and eat them, but I'm not looking forward to buying the next $15 bag of feed. I'm going on vacation to Captiva Island and St Augustine in five weeks, and I most definitely don't want to pay a birdsitter. I'm ready to be done with livestock.

Why isn't that guy responding to my texts?

Citronella Candle

Day 242: Citronella Candle

Thank you for breaking, citronella candle. You've been stinking up our camping gear for too many years. Every year, I bring you out of storage and set you on the table on the back deck. I never light you, because your smoke stuffs up my nose and makes my eyes water. The bats living in our eaves do a better job discouraging mosquitos than your smoke does anyway.

I've developed an on-line records management system for the Arb & Gardens that has had me reviewing and assessing hundreds of documents over the past few years. My favorite? A letter to the director from 1964 complimenting him on the beauty of the Arboretum, but asking whether something could be done to eliminate the mosquitos.

Joe Mooney, trusted insect expert (among his other talents), told me that the most effective way to discourage mosquitos is with a breeze. Mosquitos, he says, are not strong fliers. You can even purchase a little battery-powered fan to bring with you on a hike, although reviews on the effectiveness of this are mixed.

Consumer Reports gives exactly the kind of advice that often makes expensive research projects seem most ridiculous: stay inside. They have additional common-sensical suggestions that are not quite as obvious (but still pretty damned obvious): covering up and eliminating mosquito breeding areas from your yard.

Moving back to California is also an option.

Gold Down Coat and Vest

Day 241: Gold Down Coat and Vest
Emma Jane went off to college with my sedate black down coat in her suitcase, leaving me with the much a much flashier (albeit warmer) gold coat and vest. We bought the gold coat for her when she was attending that bastion of misery, middle school. Metallic down coats were in then. Gold, silver or bronze.

Being in - fitting in - is paramount when you are thirteen years old.

Gold coats fell out of fashion much more quickly than down coats wear out, so when she was in ninth grade, she began wearing my black coat, and I began wearing the gold. We never spoke about it. Somehow, it just happened. That was in the days of hefty private school tuition and cautious spending. I tried to tone the gold coat down with dark brown RIT, but the repellant metallic fabric wouldn't absorb the dye. Sadly, the middle school stains and spots accepted the die very well, rendering the coat totally inappropriate for a professional setting. Still, I kept wearing it. Except for the stains, it was in perfectly good shape, and a new down coat would have been a luxury.

Now Emma is off to college, and thanks to my parents' generosity and our own consistent savings plan, college proves to be much more affordable than private high school. And now I have two jobs, one of which involves dressing professionally. (When I took the job at the botanical gardens & arboretum nine years ago, I celebrated by burning my suits. Just kidding: I actually took them all to the Salvation Army.) So I've spent a lot of time shopping these past few weeks, and truly, it hasn't been all bad. It's fun to have all "new" stuff, especially things like the mustard-colored wool felt Ann Taylor jacket from Value World, or the gray angora boucle sweater from the Thrift Shop, or the coral velour Talbot's jacket that Lisa passed on.

When I put on the stained gold coat this morning, I realized suddenly that I had the means and the time to replace it with exactly, precisely, specifically, entirely what I wanted. And not only could I get the exact right down coat: I could also get myself a warm wool dress coat.

It may be cheating to say that I'm getting rid of something today, when I'm actually at net zero, but it just felt so awesome to go to the mall and buy myself exactly what I wanted, without worrying about the price. To get rid of the stained not-quite-right thing I've been making do with for years.

Writing the last Greenhills tuition payment last April felt great. I loved going to the car dealer and buying myself my own brand-new zero miles car. It's been such a joy to buy myself lattes and Jimmy Johns and happy hour cocktails without a moment's worry. And I haven't gone to the mall and bought myself nice clothes without worrying about the price tag since I was a yuppie in San Francisco, dressing the management consultant part.

When Sam says that he wants to be rich someday, I always say that money doesn't make you happy. I actually believe it's true. Poverty - hunger, cold, danger, insecurity - certainly contributes to unhappiness, but I believe that having enough to meet your basic needs makes a person virtually as happy as vast riches. I have a suspicion, in fact, that people with great wealth may be less happy than people with just enough.

But to be able to treat yourself to two new coats without worrying about the price: what a gift. Today I didn't shop for the kids or the price or the holidays. It was pure selfishness, and boy, was it fun.

Despite all that, I can't say I love the mall. The fake Christmas trees, the perfumed air, the excessive mirrors, the crowds: it all totals far more stimulation than I enjoy, except once in blue moon. With this morning's success, I'm pretty sure I won't have to go to the mall again for a long, long, long time.

Tray

Day 240: Tray

Cultivate contentment. I have this taped on my desk, next to my monitor at work. I find this precept very difficult to follow. It has something to do with looking on the bright side, and counting our blessings, and remembering that the grass is always greener. It's about vigilantly disregarding those who are better off than I am, and being alert to the ways in which my life is good.

Easier said than done. For most aspects of my life, I am in a constant state of ambivalence. I long for the country, but love my nearby neighbors and being able to walk into town. I want a low-stress job, but one with complexity, intensity and meaning. My dog is affectionate, adorable, and doesn't shed, but he's high strung and not very obedient. I love the comfort of my Trek cross-over bike, but miss the quickness and light weight of my old Miyata. Our hardwood floors are beautiful, but easily damaged and cold beneath my feet.

This tray is one of several not-quite-perfect trays. It's a bit too big to fit through the door to the attic. It's not charming. I've got another smaller wooden tray with legs that's the right size, but damaged on the top. And yet another metal tray, probably from the 50s, that would be perfect, with its retro style (complete with hand-painted fruit bowl), its perfect size and its slightly rounded edges. Except that it's rusty.

Occasionally, though, I am entirely content. I love my mandolin. Never for one moment do I fantasize about getting a new and different mandolin. I never secretly hope that my mandolin will be damaged so I cam replace it. I never look with envy upon other people's mandolins. I never wish that it is a different color, or a different shape, or larger, or smaller, or louder, or softer, or clearer, or brighter. I never think to myself, this will be the last mandolin I ever own: is it really good enough? My mandolin is so much more than any beginning player could ever want. I think of it always with gratitude.

It was difficult to play in the beginning. I had a very early lesson with local musician Jason Dennie; he suggested that another instrument might be easier to use. And it was hard to play, its high action requiring significant finger strength and torque. I advertised it for sale at the Mandolin Cafe, and went to test out other, easier mandolins at Elderly in Lansing. I guess I played thirty instruments, and not one of them felt right. The only ones that came close were tens of thousands of dollars. So began an odyssey that began with the maker, Will Kimble, and ended when Elderly reset the neck, miraculously turning the instrument's lovely resonance into something lovely, resonant and infinitely playable.

We moved from house to house many times when I was a child: seven residences in seventeen years. Yet shortly after I left home, my parents moved into the house they still live in, almost 35 years later. After 20 years of marriage, they built their dream house, and it is still perfect.

It's hard to know whether my state of ambivalence is emblematic of the times, or a personal neurosis, or an objective statement about the imperfection of these objects in my life. I'm inclined to believe it's 80% me and 20% circumstances. I'm an American after all, constantly striving for bigger and better. But perhaps my mandolin tells a different story. Perhaps I could find the perfect neighborhood, the perfect job, the perfect dog, the perfect bicycle, the perfect house. Perhaps then I wouldn't be scanning Zillow and shopping for bikes and looking at the cute pups on petfinder.com.

Or perhaps it's all about meditation and mind control.

Soap Boxes

Day 239: Soap Boxes

Naturally, it's tempting to make atrocious puns about soap boxes and excessive packaging. I do so love fine double-milled French soaps, and they do so often come in fancy packages. And it's so hard to get rid of fancy packages. And there's no purpose to put to the fancy packages. Into the recycling. 

Spices

Day 238: Spices

Marge and Homer Simpson, Season Eight, El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer:
Marge: Oh, look at that adorable spice rack!
Homer: Eight spices.
Marge: Oh, some must be doubles.

I have been surprised by the things I'm saving for sentiment's sake. Like spices. These were given to me by our former next-door-neighbor, Barbara, who lived in the house for 30 years. She moved out at age 80 to be with her boyfriend, Nate. She is my hero.

I can only imagine what it's like to move out of a house after 30 years. How full it would be of memories, and objects connected to memories.  When she decided to sell, I told her I would take anything she was having trouble getting rid of. I said I would sort it and either keep the stuff or find it a good home. So I ended up with a number of odd things, including this little pot of French herbs, a whole lot of poppy seeds in various containers, and some saffron in a retro jar.

You've probably heard that spices are only flavorful for six months, and, if you're a cynic and a food ignoramus, like me, you've probably also wondered if such rumors were spread by Spice Island. Not so, says salon.com. According to the article i read, if you buy your herbs whole and grind them yourself, your spices can remain flavorful for a full year!

A full year? Give me a break. I doubt we have a single spice that is less than two years old. Calculating back from the ages of the babies who have been born in the house next door since Barbara left, I'm thinking she moved out at least seven years ago. And these spices were already old and faded when she gave them to me.

Happily, I had a brilliant idea for transitioning the unidentified "French herbs" into something that is at once aesthetically pleasing, functional and sentimental. I dumped the herbs and brewed up a pot of homemade Chapstick using the last of my honeycomb and a bit of oil. Now I have a lifetime supply of lip balm in a pleasing little jar that reminds me of Barbara and my honeybees. 

And I still have at least eight spices on the rack.

Playing Cards

Day 237: Playing Cards
The days of board games and playing cards may be numbered, but in our family, we still play games with three-dimensional game boards and real game pieces, at least sometimes. When Sam was younger and we had strict limits on "screen time," he wanted to play games every night. Clue. Simpson's Monopoly. Othello. Connect Four. Don't Break the Ice. Backgammon. Star Wars Triviat Pursuit. Checkers. Chess. They're all still in our game cupboard. Even now that he's 16 years old and mostly hangs out in his room, it isn't too difficult to convince him to come downstairs for a match or two.

Cards we generally reserve for visits with Jane (or Gramma, or Janerd, or Sweet Little Mommy, depending on your perspective). Our favorite card game, Beardie, was imported by my sister-in-law, Sylvie, who played it on camping trips on the beach in the south of France, back when she was a kid. The idea is to take as few points as possible, and the rules change and the stakes go up with each hand:

• First hand - each trick is worth five points
• Second hand - each heart is worth five points
• Third hand - each queen is worth 25 points
• Fourth hand - the King of Spades (aka "Beardie") is worth 90 points
• Fifth hand - the last trick is worth 100 points
• Sixth hand - all of the above (fortunes change drastically!)
• Seventh hand - a communal solitaire game with the first person to go out having 350 points deducted from their score, the second person having 150 points deducted, and the third, 50 points

It's a very silly game involving significantly less strategy than, say, euchre, which Rich and I used to play as a doubles game with my in-laws before Bill died. Or bridge, which can actually bring grown men to tears. (I know, I've seen it.) Or even hearts, because of passing the three cards. But anyone can play Beardie, even a seven year old child, and it's fun, and silly, and a chance to remember Bill, who would reliably say, each and every game, always with the same look of wounded surprise, "What? I caught that with a two?"

Board games and card games are a way to connect with each other in real time, with real physical objects, around a real table. Still, I find I don't actually need eleven complete decks of cards. I'm sticking with the box of eight packs, many unopened, which I believe my father got for Sam as part of a poker set. I'm hoping another family can make use of these decks to make their own connections around the holiday table.

Scissors

Day 236: Scissors

Bad scissors, plus a button
and PostIt flags

Scissors are ingenious. Exquisitely simple. Universally useful. Elegant. No household is complete without a pair, or several.

Did you know they were invented 1500 years ago in ancient Egypt? We can also thank the Egyptians for breathmints and toothpaste, door locks and bowling, written language and calendars.

I've unearthed many pairs of scissors over the past 231 days. Fabric Fiskars, kitchen shears, needlepoint scissors with a stork design, nail scissors, all-purpose shears, medical scissors (for removing stitches), wire cutters, pinking shears, pruning shears. Tiny little ones folded into a Swiss army knife. We use them all.

When Emma Jane was studying U.S. colonial history (and I was quizzing her), I learned that the typical colonial lived in abject poverty, struggling day-to-day to survive. They were not Charles and Caroline Ingalls, living independently, off the grid, like old-fashioned militant group members. Mental illness, harsh weather, low wages, alcoholism, poor health care, wage discrimination. Lack of tools. A pair of scissors like this would have been sharpened, and tightened, and wrapped in cloth, and kept safe.

In my house, when the kids were young, but old enough to use scissors on their own, scissors disappeared like potato chips. I tried keeping a pair in every drawer, but they would slip away like a fistful of dry sand.

Misplaced but not lost. They've been popping out of every bin and cupboard and shelf. I'm back to a pair in every drawer. This one single pair - with its too long, too loose blades and blunted tip - is the player who didn't get a seat when the music stopped.

I've been thinking lately about what a pleasure it has been, these past 16 years, to leave the chaos of my child-soaked house for the neat calm at my parents', every Sunday for family dinner. Everything has a place, and everything in its place. We are heading in that direction now. The part of me that reveled in the connected chaos of those warm little needy passionate rosy-cheeked metamorphosizing affirming little bits of life is a little sad.

But when I put down the computer and take out my needlepoint bag, I won't be sorry to find a pair of sharp scissors inside.

Staple Gun Staples

Day 235: Staple Gun Staples
I'm finally admitting defeat. I will never take this box of staple gun staples back to the store to purchase the correct size for my staple gun. I bought these when Nicole was our au pair, so that would have made it 2003, the same year we moved into this house. I don't remember where I bought them, and of course I no longer have a receipt. (As a general rule, I keep receipts only for things I would never return, such as packs of gum.)

Sadly, for the past eleven years, I have had no staples for my staple gun, because I've been meaning to exchange these staples for the correct size. I've had to use Scotch tape, or wood glue, or thumb tacks, or nails, or paper-grade staples to jobs such as stapling the fabric back onto the couch or attaching fiberglass insulation to the garage wall.

I remember when I purchased my staple gun, in San Francisco in 1989, at the kind of packed-from-floor-to-ceiling hardware store you see in the City. It helped pay for graduate school: I stapled fliers up on all the light poles on campus, advertising typing services. (I'm a very fast typist.)

I still love my staple gun. For those of you who are searching for an anniversary or birthday gift, I give you words of wisdom from Greg Long, the Carpenter Guy: "Tools, not jewels." For the same price as hiring a carpenter, you can purchase awesome hammers, awls and table saws, and have the satisfaction of fixing your own things your own self.

But the tools need to be good. And they need to be complete. No weak, namby-pamby cordless drills on the cheap from Sears. Get something with torque, and a long-lasting, powerful battery. High carbon steel with black oxide coating. Get cast iron. Get diamonds.

If you do nothing else - if you purchase your tools at the Reuse Center, if you sharpen your knives on a rock in the backyard, if you use your wooden clogs as a hammer and your fingernail as a screwdriver - if you do nothing else, when you buy your staples...get the right size.

Papier Mache Face Sculpture, Kaya's Mat, Golf Ball, Foam Planet Earth and a Dinosaur Bone

Day 234: Papier Mache Face Sculpture, Kaya's Mat, Golf Ball, Foam Planet Earth and a Dinosaur Bone

Naturally, the papier mache face sculpture is the hardest of these to get rid of. All kid art is hard to get rid of, especially when your kids had Mrs. Higgins as their art teacher at Burns Park School. This little guy is in pretty bad shape, though; I'm not sure how much longer he's going to hold up. One of his horns is hanging by a thread. The papier mache is beginning to disintegrate. And the little triangle smile, while still friendly in its melancholy way, is coming off. I can't recall which kid made him, or of which brilliant art project he is the product, but I'm glad he's memorialized now. His picture has been published. He's got his 15 minutes of fame.

Kaya's mat can follow Kaya to my nieces' house, where all the American Girls are now residing. Kaya definitely had the coolest stuff, being a Nez Perce: the horse, the tipi, the leather mocossins, the ceramic fire. I'm sure she hasn't missed her sleeping mat. The girls have probably made something softer for her. She probably sleeps in a bed, with Kit and Samantha.

The golf ball and the foam planet earth can go in the Goodwill box.

The dinosaur bone can go in the garbage.

Contents of the Junk Drawer

Day 233: Contents of the Junk Drawer
I didn't realize I had a junk drawer, until I opened the small drawer in our credenza and noticed all the junk. Here's what I found and either threw away or added to the Goodwill box:

• Hardware to go with the curtain rods that I put in the Goodwill box a few days ago. Sam was supposed to drop all that stuff off at the Goodwill last weekend, but luckily, he forgot. Now the rods and the hardware are in the same box.
• Three coasters from different brew pubs. We had thought this would be a good way to remember what local brews we'd tried. The idea clearly lasted for three outings, and then we stuffed the idea away and forgot about it.
• A leather phone case that does not fit any of our phones.
• A hex wrench that clearly came with a piece of assemble-it-yourself Ikea furniture, and a broken folding plier and penknife.
• Business cards for people I don't remember.
• A partial broken Christmas ornament.
• A broken shell necklace and a broken headband.
• A stiff, corroded eraser that no longer works.

I also found a huge fistful of pens, colored pencils and crayons, now stowed in their proper places.
The only thing left in the drawer is a half-dozen pairs of cheap sunglasses. Time to rename the drawer.

I may regret my decision to combine the contents of the junk drawer into a single day. I'm starting to feel cocky now that I'm almost two-thirds of the way there.

Pencil Sharpener

Day 232: Pencil Sharpener
Our peach painted lady in San Francisco was built with such fine craftsmanship that we couldn't insure it at replacement value. If the place had burned down, we would only have been covered to build a similar, lower quality house. I was never very worried about that - after all, the house had survived Loma Prieta in 1989, and the great earthquake of 1906. Sure, it was a kit house, but everything from the handmade nails to the fancy wooden trim to the six-foot-tall double-hung windows was solid.

Just like this old-fashioned pencil sharpener. When I was in elementary school, every classroom had one of these. I liked my pencils sharp. I remember feeding my pencil into the opening and plying just the right amount pressure on the eraser end to get the blades inside to bite. I liked turning the crank, feeling the resistance as the blades scraped away the wood, and that sweet moment when the resistance dropped, the blades spun smoothly, and I knew my lead was perfectly sharp. 

This pencil sharpener would have lasted forever if I hadn't dropped the sturdy metal cover piece on the cement floor of the basement one too many times. It was built to last. Not like those little rinky-dink plastic pencil sharpeners the kids stow in their pencil cases at the start of the school year. Or even worse, the whining electric ones that melt your pencil like a popsicle in the July sun.

What is the rationale behind an electric pencil sharpener? Are our arms really so  weak? Must we use fossil fuels to do a job that can be completed in 30 seconds with nothing but a sharp knife and a careful eye?

And what about leaf blowers? Can leaf blowers possibly be faster and easier than a sturdy metal rake?

We live next door to an apartment building. I estimate that the lawn is about 2,000 square feet. Maybe less. It requires two men with rider mowers and leaf blowers at least two-and-a-half hours to mow. The two-and-a-half hours usually commences at 7 a.m. on a Saturday, or at exactly the moment I take my book and glass of cool iced tea out on the deck for a relaxing moment, or five minutes after we light the coals for a backyard barbecue. I honestly believe we generate less noise and use less fuel caring for 800 acres at the Arb & Gardens than my next-door neighbor does for his 1/8 of an acre.

What's so bad about a reel push mower? Cheap, quiet and zero emissions.

Kind of like my busted pencil sharpener.

Stuffed Lemur (or is it a leopard?)

Day 231: stuffed Lemur (or is it a leopard?)

I've got a lot of stuffed animals that will be a struggle to let go of. Dancing Bear, the first one I bought, for Emma, before she was born, back when I'd  spread a tiny onesie out on our bed and imagine that soon, it would be filled with baby. Teddy Bear, whom I asked for and got for Cheistmas when I was seven years old, a little embarrassed to ask because at the time, I thought I was too old for stuffed animals. He's been everywhere with me: college, Europe, San Francisco. Snoopy, a gift for Sam his very first Christmas, from Rich's cousin Connie. Snoopy still sleeps in Sam's bed.  Mr. Egg, a weird slinky nylon Teddy bear stuffed with hard little beans, who is now living in a dorm with Emma. Rosemary, the lifelike German Shepherd Dog that Miranda brought for us, all the way across the country on an airplane. Or the cheery lion Ina brought from Turingia. 

The lemur can go. It's supposed to talk (what do lemurs say, anyway?). It's got a hard square silent voice box buried in its gut, which makes it less sweet and cuddly and more like a piece of junk. It does have appeal for the canine member of our family - I had trouble photographing it because Harpo kept tearing past and grabbing at it with his teeth - but I'm afraid the dog will choke on the busted voice box if he accomplishes his goal of dismembering it. 

I suspect there may be one or two more in the stuffed animal basket who can go. But definitely not Greg, the stuffed bear that Emma knitted for Sam, with my mother's help. Nor the naked Raggedy Ann and Andy my mom's friend made for Emma, which she spent hours dressing and undressing. And not the awesome six foot stuffed snake we've got wrapped around our attic chimney.  

No indeed. We can't get rid of Snoopy or Teddy Bear or Mr. Egg or Greg or Rosemary or Raggedy Ann and Andy or Dancing Bear or the snake. Some things cannot be discarded. 

Garden Bed Map and Watercolor Pad

Day 230: Garden Bed Map and Watercolor Pad

 These two items are great examples of things that I've been holding onto because they might come in handy some day: vestiges of hobbies that have fallen by the wayside. How likely is it that I'll take up watercolors again? At best, I was a dabbler. A very shallow dabbler. The garden bed map is one of my little efficiency devices: with its little movable squares, I don't need to redraw the map every year, I can just move the squares around. (Even with a trowel in my hand I can't help but dream up business process improvements.) These things have been stored on our lovely built-in bookshelf for several years, annoying me by covering the pretty wood with clutter.

I am responsible for systematizing the stuff at two organizations whose primary function is to manage collections: an archive and a botanical garden. I've come to realize that the urge not to get rid of stuff-that-might-come-in-handy is almost inescapable, like the urge to turn your head and look at an accident on the freeway. It's one reason we have traffic jams.

In the midst of cleaning and organizing tools and supplies at the botanical gardens, the flat tires on the garden carts are getting replaced. Because, guess what? We found a box of replacement wheels!

Having too much stuff practically guarantees that the stuff you have won't come in handy. Instead, the stuff most likely to be useful - the stuff that should have been carefully selected to remain in your space, visible and accessible - is buried and forgotten. Just like that box of wheels got buried under a pile of broken tools and old microwaves.

The odds that I'll use this pad of watercolor paper and that garden map are pretty low. On the other hand, it's an absolute certainty that every Saturday morning while I'm drinking my coffee in my Edith Bunker chair, I'm going to see the garden map and the pad of paper cluttering up my nice bookshelf, and feel annoyed.

Except not this week.

This week, my shelf just got a little cleaner.

Wooden Flute

Day 228: Wooden Flute

Although I'm the wind player in this family - and though I never play any wind instrument except the penny whistle these days - I still had to justify to Rich my decision to get rid of this wooden flute. My reasons are (1) we have another, better wooden flute (as well as a solid silver Gemeinhardt): (2) this wooden flute was stuck headfirst in the dearly departed ponytail palm and is corrupted; and (3) the kids will never want it, and if they do, see point number one. 

It took a supreme act of will to put it in the Goodwill box. Now that it's there, it is completely forgotten. Irrelevant.

Spider Plant

Day 227: Spider Plant

I have a problem. The hens have not given me an egg in more than two months. Winter is coming, and with it, a long vacation to visit Jane in Florida. We have no next door neighbor to take care of the hens while we are away. In the garage, our chicken feed pail is almost empty. To get chicken feed, one must drive all the way to the Tractor Supply Store twelve miles away, and pay $15 for a single bag of pellets.

We eat a lot of chicken. But somehow, I'm able emotionally to avoid connecting the nuggets with the gals out back. Don't get me wrong. Having chickens has increased my sympathy for battery chickens. It's not right to fatten up an animal so that it can't walk, and to keep it penned up even if it could walk, so that it spends its entire life in a tiny dark cube. I remember how unhappy the girls out back were last winter, when the cold and snow were so relentless.

For a while this summer, one of our hens was escaping every day. Yes, she was born a rambling hen. She'd fly the coop, scout around for a hidden spot to lay her eggs, and spend the rest of the day keeping our next-door-neighbor, Ben, company while he built his new front porch. Once, we got an unsigned note, presumably from a neighbor, asking us to keep our chickens out of their garden. Another time, a couple of college girls captured her and brought her back home. When Rich would arrive home from work, she'd come rushing up to greet him, and then squat down so he could pick her up and carry her back to the chicken run.

Contrast this to our dog, Harpo, who doesn't greet anyone until I get home, preferring instead to lounge on the back of the sofa, not even deigning to wag his tail in greeting.

All this adds up to a problem. We've got two hens who won't lay, who cost us money, who can't be boarded over Christmas, who can't survive untended, and whom we couldn't possibly slaughter, pluck and eat. The backyard chicken-keeper's dilemma.

That's the problem with living things. Even houseplants. I've got three. One is a cactus, which causes me no trouble. One is an asparagus fern, which looks like an awesome underseas plant but which sheds like a Christmas tree and irritates me all winter long. One is a spider plant, which looks like a bad hair day and barely survives the winter indoors. Every year, I tell myself I'll compost the houseplants at the end of the summer. Every year, I can't bring myself to do it. This year, I even left them outdoors until after the first hard freeze (that would be yesterday).

They refused to die.

In honor of the stuff project, I resolved finally to get rid of the spider plant and the asparagus fern rather than torture myself for another winter, cleaning up leaf particles and trying to find a space for them that gets enough light but won't hurt the wooden floors.

The unsentimental horticulturalists at work would roll their eyes, but in the end, I couldn't do it. First, I decided that instead of composting the asparagus fern, I'd give it to my mother. It looks so cool, and she's so good with plants. Then, I took a photo of the spider plant, emailed it to myself and marched it out to the compost container. Where I couldn't bring myself to dump it in. Instead, I rifled around in the recycling bin for a piece of cardboard, and wrote "FREE" on it, in big red letters. Carefully set it out on the street, where motorists and pedestrians would clearly see it. Told myself I could compost it tomorrow, if it's still out there.

Which brings me back around to the chickens.

How will a person who can't kill a houseplant get rid of two barren hens?

Microscope and Slides

Day 226: Microscope and Slides
When Sam and Emma were young, I wanted to open all the world to them, all the possibilities and opportunities. Thus, when my father gave us this microscope and slides, I imagined, because they loved the outdoors, that this might spur them to a passion - even a profession - in science.

But to a non-scientist like myself, the view through the microscope is more akin to abstract art than a window to the world. Sure, the slides are pretty. The little glass rectangles are labeled: tree sap, sugar, or soil. They don't resemble their regular selves, seen through the microscope. It's interesting that sap looks that way through a microscope, bumpy and dotty and ropy (or whatever). The colors even look different. About as interesting - and for about as long - as the abstract art gallery at the Detroit Institute of Art. Luckily, at the DIA, they have sharp pencils and pads of paper for when the kids get tired of looking.

In my mind, looking at slides through a microscope is hands-on. But if you're an Arts & Ideas major, all you can really do it look. You can't understand.

No thanks to me, both my kids have exceeded me as scientists. Emma Jane was the only freshman BFA student to take physics, and she's getting an A. (Lord knows why, but she loves physics.) Sam is going strong in his high school's innovative science program, where all the disciplines are taught seamlessly together every year.

Recently, I sent my friend Lisa an email asking whether my hens have two X-chromosomes. Her answer? "Nope. A Z chromosome and a W chromosome. In birds, the ovum determines the sex." This means nothing to me, even after I went to the Wikipedia link she attached to her answer. Nevertheless, I love that she knew the answer. I'm happy this microscope and accompanying slides will get a second life at the Summers Knoll School, where Lisa volunteers. I hope that she'll use her deep knowledge to help the kids understand what they're seeing. And help them love science.