Living in limbo

As feared, our stay here at my parents is turning out to be the extended re-mix 12" version, not the 45. The hold up is needing a second vehicle. If I go to Maine without one, the kids and I will be pretty much stuck at the cabin whenever Aaron goes to work, i.e., for 10 hours a day, five days a week. Yes, we can take walks in the woods. Yes, we have two neighbors we could visit. But that would be it. No food shopping, no library, no errands. As much as I miss Aaron, that scenario that puts me in mind of The Shining. Meanwhile, a car (or truck?) purchase is not something to rush into. There are many variables to examine and ponder--and that bump up against each other. Forest's vote is for a purple car.  Aaron and I are flexible on color.  We just want something that can handle our road and that is reliable, oh yeah, and that we can afford.  Thoughts?  Advice?

Reanimator baby

Nap time is a horror show these days. Walker has a cold, broke his first tooth on Tues with a second about to break through, and hasn't pooped since Monday. Despite these trying conditions he remains fairly cheerful. He just can't sleep very well. It takes ages to get him to sleep, and, like every proper monster, he reanimates only when you have fully let your guard down, convinced the battle is won. Then there is the alien afterbirth goo that is constantly flowing from his nose. When I see how much comes out of his nose after some of his sneezes, I am glad they have determined that brain size doesn't correlate with brain capability. Nasal cavities that large, can't allow enough room for a normal sized brain. But really beyond the goo and the reanimation, the monster analogy breaks down. Monsters in movies are never appeased with cooing and a few cuddles. Nor are they irresistibly cute, waving every time they hear the word "bye" with a big grin and a full arm wave so gleeful and enthusiastic the whole torso is in on the act. But, nevertheless, please let this cold be brief.

Shout out for fossil fuels

Happy Thanksgiving! Any holiday that centers around food and giving thanks is tops with me. I am, of course, very thankful for all the usual hackneyed stuff that we all are, and that if I think about for any amount of time gets me watery-eyed. There is that. Thank you.

Then there is the stuff I don't traditionally ponder on Turkey Day, because I'm not usually on the verge of moving off-the-grid. It paradoxical, but logical, that as my carbon footprint is about to shrink, I am ever more grateful for fossil fuels. Despite myself. It is so much more comfortable to decry the profligate use of oil and coal here in the United States. The oil spill this summer and the decapitation of mountains, to name two obvious examples, are so upsetting to me, I avoid relevant news stories. But, man oh man, life is good with all that extra help.

Today, I am grateful for the coal that is burning so I can have electricity to power the baby monitor that allows me to write without freezing at each stray noise, the sound machine that allows my toddler to frolic without waking his younger brother, and the dishwasher that makes cleaning while under the influence of tryptophan ever so much quicker and easier. And I am grateful for the oil that is burning to keep my parents house comfortably warm, that afforded me a hot shower this morning, and, most especially, that was processed into the gasoline that enabled Aaron to come from Maine to be with us and enabled some dear friends to zip over from the next town for a visit earlier today. It almost feels silly to write about these things, they are so mundane and so easy to take for granted. But what a different Thanksgiving this would be without all this and if we had to make dinner in a wood cook stove, heat with wood, eat without electric lights, and clean up afterward in the semi-dark, heating our water along the way. (And just to be clear, I am not giving up all of these things in our cabin. So, thank you also for propane!)

Does anything stand out for you this particular Thanksgiving?

New York really is a helluva town

The morning of my departure from NYC, I had a rare and unexpected chance to listen to my ipod. (Child-free for a few hours!) As per usual, I listened to a podcast of Fresh Air. Terry Gross was interviewing Jay-Z, an artist I've heard of, but barely heard. The show ended with "Empire State of Mind." And that was that. I spent the rest of the day swimming in nostalgia. It had slipped my mind for the past decade or so, what a cultural center I live in. New York City is not chopped liver. For months, I've been mourning leaving my friends. But I thought I'd leave New York itself with no more than a big sigh of relief to have blown that ginormous popcorn stand. Not so. (And, really, I have to ask, what are the odds? Jay-Z on Fresh Air?)

Then, to top it all off, it was a knock-out of a day. The buildings of Manhattan, in vista, can evoke magnificent cliffs: solid, immovable, majestic, static. All the action is buried down at the bottom of the canyons along endless miles of streets and avenues. But given the right weather conditions, The City itself comes alive and is so beautiful any crust of jade you may have grown cracks right off. The sky was crowded with iron-blue bottomed clouds, almost overcast. But there was enough cheerful blue showing here and there to reveal the white fluff tops of the clouds and let the sun in. The clouds were moving fast across the sky, and that wind was hitting us down below, also, freeing Fall leaves from their restless branches.

The heart of the drama, however, was the light. Sun and shadow flowing over us all, as if the gods were saying, "You put on all your little plays, film your little films and tv shows, you want to see lighting? We'll show you lighting." A divine spotlight: Look here, now here, and now check this out. The Williamsburg Savings Bank glowing creamy, yellow-white against a matte background of variegated ominous blue clouds, not a speck of sky blue peeking through to mar the effect. Then the Willie B Savings Bank fades into shadow, blending in with all the other cliffs. And a flock of pigeons, flying their spirals, white patches flashing, gray feathers gleaming, is all there is to look at. Already the spotlight has moved on and a tree glows bright against the flat underbellies of the clouds, the golden yellow a perfect compliment to the stormy blue.

I ended up so mushy about it all, I posted an uncharacteristically emotional status up-date on Facebook, which triggered further weeping. "Good bye, New York. I love you." No jade, just a heartfelt farewell. Then we drove to get Forest at school and got on the BQE an exit earlier than usual, which brought us past the Statue of Liberty and an excellent view of the southern tip of Manhattan. I sat squeezed between two car seats veritably steeping in nostalgia until we hit stop-and-go traffic over Williamsburg. Doing the creep-crawl out of The City, yet again, had me cheering in short order. We're finally blowing this popcorn stand. Hot diggity dog!

Culling the herd.

This summer, after weeks of packing for Maine; clearing drawers, closets, and shelves for the subleters; and rearranging the cabin a few times, Aaron said he felt like a shepherd herding flocks of boxes. (Of course, the average shepherd doesn't have to carry each sheep, one by one, from point A to point B.) Well, now it is time to cull the herd. We must decide what to bring and what to post on Craig's List and Park Slope Parents. As we research the energy usage on different appliances, it starts to feel more like pitching items off a ship than herd management. Bye-bye A/C's, so long TV, I'll miss you toaster oven, but we just can't stay afloat with all of you along for the ride.

So much for our plan to winter on-the-grid in Brooklyn

It's official, we are moving to Maine at the end of November.

Aaron gave notice because he got a job in Maine. In the balance, this is excellent, but I'm just not ready to leave Brooklyn on such short notice. On the upside, we'll know what really needs to be done on the cabin to make winter more pleasant going forward. And Aaron put a deposit on a David Bradley walk-behind tractor with a plow attachment. Although it is from the 1940's, it does have a new motor. So we just have to seal up under the house with some straw bales, hook up the flue for the stove, and we're good to go. Oh, and pack up our entire Brooklyn life and say goodbye.

How my high ideals were mown down this summer

By the time we arrived in Maine this Spring, our yard was already over-grown, the grass tall enough to hide rhubarb plants. Initially, we deemed mowing a low priority and happily waded through our lawn. We noticed how closely cropped Mid-coast Maine lawns are and joked about our hippy homestead. Yes, it was all fun games until we started realizing the extent of our tick problem and were reminded that tall grasses are to ticks what the Ramble in Central Park once was (still is?) to certain men, a great place to lurk while you wait for a tasty tidbit to walk by. So we bought a push lawn mower and basked complacently in the glow of shared ideals. We were here to escape noise, not make noise. We're homesteaders, not gas guzzlers. Besides, people-powered mowers are so much safer and we have small children to think of.

Luckily, Aaron and I also share a willingness to re-visit the ideals-vs.-certain-realities equation and adjust as needed. The first problem was that the mower wasn't able to cut one type of tall stalk, and since the ticks were not abating, we worried these stalks were acting as safe harbor. The second problem was that to keep up with all of our lawn, which includes a small network of former ATV trails, mowing became Aaron's primary outdoor activity. By the time the last corners were done, the first corners needed to be mown again. And the tick siege continued. We reassessed. It's so quiet around here, what's a little noise every once in a while? We are homesteaders, not landscapers. Besides, Lyme Disease is no joke and we have small children to think of. And just like that, we turned to the Lawn Chief, a ride-on mower that the former owner left for us to fix or dispose of. It was sitting in our shed, an object of much fascination for Forest. Happily, with nothing more than a new battery and some air in its tires, the Lawn Chief was ready to roar (loudly enough to make Forest sob when he finally got to ride on it). And, voila, mowing shrinks to a once a week chore.

And there you have the siren call of the Industrial Revolution: get more done in less time. (The siren call of the Post-Industrial Age seems to be about spending all that saved time: movies, shopping, tv, video games, Facebook.) Although part of our homesteading dream is about greater self-reliance and smaller carbon footprints, how do we resist the lures of the heavy machinery when our to-do list looms long and guzzling a little gas enables us to check new items off rather than check the same item off over and over?

Sleep-gods willing, I'll post soon on other adjustments we confronted this past summer when our ideals bumped up against reality.