You Have Got To See This

Many thanks to Marie who blogs in Deep End of the Gene Pool for this incredible, inspirational video - I will never, EVER, bitch about downward dog again:

Zappos Shopping

I'm on a bag and shoe kick right now - I am resolved not to buy much clothing - I have a closet full of clothes that I can almost get into, and thus will keep on my work out journey to get back into said clothes.  I have invested in a couple of golf outfits, because the old stuff was when I was super thin (for me) and fit.  My closet is still full of gorgeous high heels that I rarely get to wear anymore - generally only if I'm in DC on business and perhaps go out to dinner afterward.  My office is generally casual and my lifestyle has become much more casual than before.  While I don't need any shoes, per se, I still need to indulge once in a while.  That's why I heart Zappos - the quality and selection are great, the customer service rocks and I can indulge all my different personalities (ok, styles).  So...in my usual schizophrenic way, I indulged the girly girl and the earth mother in me.

 

The girly girl:

Calvin Klein roman sandals:

Already have  great dark brown hobo bag to match.  When I get girly girl, I like to have my bag match...

 

The earth mother side of me:

Tevas

 

And because I've just about worn out my old Longchamps tote bag, a Kavu messenger bag - big enough to carry around all of my junk, but I can wear it across my body (I also don't feel the need to match):

 

Stepford Village is having a community yard sale this month, so it's time to clean out all of my bags that are great, but that I just don't carry anymore.  I want to get down to two or three bags that meet 90% of my needs. These are examples of some of the bags lurking in the back of my closet:

Last summer's bag:

From the Wall St. days (yeah, I still have a floppy bow tie somewhere, too).

During my road warrior days:

 

Which style do think is most fitting for me???

Neighborhood Bookstores

I don't live in Mt. Airy, a Philadelphia neighborhood, but I wish I did.  I live in the great wash of suburbia, where I can buy ANYTHING within five minutes of my house (although it may take 20 minutes to get there and another fifteen minutes to find a place to park), and this ANYTHING includes a Borders and a Barnes & Noble.  So why do I look forward to going to a tiny bookstore in a Philly neighborhood forty minutes from my neighborhood?  Because my coop is there, they have a "green" home improvement shop, and the Big Blue Marble Bookstore - a small business, a neighborhood bookstore where you may not find 40 copies of the latest best seller, but you will find folks who can tell you about the inventory because they've read almost everything in the store.  They have local poets showcased each month and there is usually a hidden gem found in the tall shelves. It's the type of bookstore that was on every main street 10 to 15 years ago - where the merchants knew what types of books you liked and could make a recommendation for you, or even better, hold a book off to the side when you made your weekly(daily) visit.

I had such a bookstore behind my first house, and I spent many a happy Saturday morning there, finding a wide range of books that I stacked next to my favorite chair and ploughed through when I would get home from work.  What I love about BBM is the lovely rickety-ness of it.  It has multiple floors - it was an old house - and there's a little cafe on the second floor that has a lovely little roof deck where you can sit with a cup of coffee on a nice day.  It's big enough to find books that is off the beaten track, but small enough not to be overwhelming. 

While I appreciate the convenience of the megastores, I just prefer the intimacy of a neighborhood shop.  I am old enough to remember accompanying my mother to Kotlikoff's department store in Camden, NJ, which was really just a two story building that had slanted floors and "sensible" clothing for children.  I remember the Peace Shop across the street from the local pharmacy where my mother worked. It was a jean shop/head shop/poster store owned by two hippies.  I begged for two months to move beyond Sears Toughskins jeans to a pair of hip hugging LandLubber jeans and Earth Shoes that were part of the uniform of the mid '70s.

The notion that your world can be serviced within a several block radius is attractive to me.  I like the idea of not having to use my car to run every errand, but biking in my neck of the woods is dangerous because of all of the locals driving humongous SUV's while chatting on their cell phones.  My sister lives in the city and has lived for years without ever having to learn how to drive.  She can get where she needs by walking, the subway or a cab.  I can understand why so many retirees in my area are moving back to the city - it is convenience, entertainment and quality of life.  I would love to take advantage of that. My goal is to one day move back to what is now called a walkable urban environment  - what I know as a city neighborhood.  My kids are teenagers, not the optimum time to move them, but my head and heart are in the city.  When the youngest graduates, the for sale sign goes up.

Weekly Wrap Up

Whew....so glad it's Friday. I had to take a business trip this week to host a marketing event for my company in DC, so that shot two days out of the week.  The event was held in a chichi DC restaurant (my company has pretty strict blogging rules, so I will not go into detail).  The food was great, the turnout was excellent and most importantly, we hit a big home run with our sales guys.  Bravo.  Much bonding (and yes....drinking) was done post event and fun was had by all. 

My trainer decided to shake up my work out.  I do not stand still during this work out at all. Constant cardio bursts and very quick, very hard exercises that I do until exhaust.  I walk like Walter Brennan for a few days afterward, so I hope it does the trick and is worth the agony. 

Because I was away during my produce box delivery, I haven't had the chance to see what was in the box.  Mom put it away. It's heavy on the fruits, onions, zucchini and spinach. I'm still eating the leftover veggie stew that I made Monday (yum), and I'll have to pick up some asparagus, portabello and limes.  My juicer should be delivered next week, and we've decided to start making our own yogurt - so much cheaper than the store - I like Face greek yogurt. It's 2 bucks a container - for 5 ounces!!!  I'll make my own for a fraction of the price.

Played a little golf this week - still rusty.  Nuff said about that.

My exciting Friday night - picking up above mentioned produce and pet food at my coop, Weaver's Way in Mt. Airy, then pop over to Big Blue Marble Bookstore (more about that place tomorrow) to see if they have the Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen

Now, I am not a vegan - anyone who's read my blog knows my allegiance to lamb stew and short ribs, however, I am trying to figure out ways to have less meat in my diet on a week in, week out basis. It's one of the few ways that really helps me to start taking weight off - that and locking the wine cellar ;-).   Finally, home to the kids, a few rounds of Guitar Hero and then off to bed.  What's your Friday night looking like? (Please let me live vicariously through you!!)

Plastic Shopping Bags: An Inconvenient Truth

 

 

 

 

On Earth Day, I wonder if anyone else feels just a little guilty accepting a plastic bag at the check out counter of Target or the grocery store?  Have you been toting the paper or cloth bags to store regularly?  I try to as much as possible.  I take them to the grocery store on a regular basis, to Barnes and Noble - makes it lot easier to tote books out (I go to B&N each week for my mom - to pick her up paperbacks and magazines. I've been hinting that it would be better for her to go to the library: good for the environment and certainly a lot more economical - but her reply is that cracking the spine of a new book is one of the few pleasures left in her life. Who am I to argue? Just wish we had the same taste in books) to the car.  I've even taken to bringing my trusty bags to Target or other shopping locations to save on plastic.  When it's unavoidable, I stash the bags so that I can drop them in the recycle bin at the grocery store - when I remember to do so.  

A dear friend of mine, Josie, has been carting her own bags for years.  Josie is an old hippie, and was talking being environmentally conscious for as long as I've known her, which has to be at least 30 years.  Josie used to live with my sister, and I remember how we used to tease her for dashing around to gather her shopping bags before we would go to the market.  Josie was forever toting home some treasure she garbage picked.  We ribbed her unmercifully, but she had a good eye and much of what she found created a funky, yet shabby-chic home that people would pay thousands for today.  My daughter's first big girl bed was an old brass trundle that she found on her way home from work one day.  Josie had her foibles, that's for sure. Extremely sensitive to sun, she used to wear hats and long sleeves regardless of temperature and she liked to garden at night.  She'd string Christmas lights at night. She didn't just eat organically, but also would bring her own distilled water to a restaurant in a mason jar, but she has a beautiful heart.  For all of our teasing about her being from the planet Fleon, Josie was, and is, ahead of her time in knowing you have to honor your surroundings and listen to what the earth says. 

I often think of her while taking my own bags into the store.  I don't do it all the time - my sister often says, "it's an inconvenient truth that I keep forgetting to put the damn bags into the car in the first place" - but I try to remember to bring the bags as often as I can.  When I do remember the bags, I see that bringing your own is more common place, but I still find that it garners me a few odd or, more accurately, irritated looks from other shoppers.  Granted, it happens in some stores more than others (it never happens in Whole Foods for example, but happens regularly in the local Shop Rite), and it almost always happens when you're in line - the cashiers start bagging without noticing that there is a stack of cloth bags in front of them. Then you get the exaggerated rolling of eyes before they re-bag. 

Today, I stopped in my local SR on my way home from the gym, and brought my cloth bags in with me. I was just going to run in, but I stopped myself and dug the bags out of the trunk.  I had 10 items, so I headed to the self check out line.  Because the scanners are configured to work with the plastic bags that are hanging there, when you put the bloody cloth bag in the bagging area, it constantly hangs up and informs you to call for assistance.  The person who resets that  machine had to practically stand with me as I finished my order. I was standing there, still sweaty from the gym, my hair half plastered to my head wearing a baggy workout T and an older pair of yoga pants (It is an "I FEEL FAT" day).  I was growing quite frustrated - and when I'm at this point, I either curse like a sailor or laugh.  Chose the latter. Luckily, she was laughing along with me as we agreed that these hellion machines were designed prior to considering anything like global warming.  

While we were standing there chuckling, a slender, impeccably dressed women pushed her cart past us, practically snorting at us for not clearing the aisle for her.  She slammed her products onto the scanner and threw them into the plastic bags sitting on the bagger.  I had just finished my order and was right along side her.  She glanced at me carrying my bags (I had a hand basket, not a shopping cart, so I was carrying the bags).  Now, admittedly, I looked scarily close to a homeless person compared to that woman. I live in Stepford Village, so I was prepared for the "look", but she saw the cloth bags and then glanced back at her plastic bags.  Instead of the look, a fleeting glimpse of what looked like guilt flashed across her face.  I didn't feel pleased, I felt compassion - I get that guilty flash when I see that someone has taken the extra 30 seconds to grab a cloth bag.  Within a nano-second, the irritated look returned and she glided out of the store.  I'm sure by the time she reached her car, she'd forgotten the 40 something woman trodding out of the store, but I hope she remembers that by doing the smallest thing like remembering a shopping bag can help. 

"Welcome to 2008 - Everybody's Miserable"

 

The above quote is from David Brook's column in the NY Times (Thanks to Peter for sending this to me).  Please read this - David Brook's Op-Ed piece in the NY Times .  While I don't often agree with Mr. Brooks, he tends to be too conservative for my taste, his views are, in the words of my friend Peter, "pragmatic and fact based".  This piece is depressing as hell to read, but spot on in its take on what the vile media, the vicious political in fighting had done to this election.  His points about the apathy and vile party politics and what it's done to the one candidate that might actually inspire real change should make us all very angry.. We are TIRED, we are growing cynical yet again because our process doesn't allow quality to float to the top, it's merely a contest to see who can sink to the lowest common denominator.  

Miss Britt's blog today is another take on this same malaise that is an underlying theme in David Brook's column.  Although she attribute generational disaffection as a factor, I do not think it's entirely a generational thing. I think it's much larger:

• It's a combination of the dissolving middle class, it's much more difficult just to survive these days - acquisition is too easy, but paying for it is too hard - people are exhausted and want to escape.
• Media does play a huge part in this - the escapism that is prevalent today (call it disaffection if you will) is not new.  In the Depression and during WWII -people wanted to escape, too.  Life magazine showed the glossy lives of movie stars. Light and "sophisticated" comedies staring Jean Harlow, Cary Grant, Wallace Beery, et al. ruled the day. I think the difference was that you had to leave your house and pay to go see them - therefore it was consumed in smaller doses. Now you have to pay money and leave your house to shut it off.
• Media part two - the constant barrage of information allows for no editing of information and the demand to have something on the air online or in print gives greater opportunity to spin in larger doses. Again, this is nothing new - William Randolph Hearst, anyone?  Yellow journalism, jingoistic appeals that are scarily similar to what we see today.  We just see more of it.
• America wants to be proud.  I love this country and have voted in almost every election that I was eligible to vote. I believe that you cannot complain if you do not vote. But as a country that has enjoyed privilege for so long, we've become entitled. Yes, there is a significant population in this country that lives below the poverty line - and many more who are just above - but see the first bullet.  We are bloated and overloaded and from that comes a disease of spirit. 

This is not to say that generational attitudes are entirely absent.  I am a baby boomer - I was born while JFK was still alive, and my parents were most definitely part of the "greatest generation" - my father was a WWII vet.  My parents were very socially aware - the joke in our family was that our holy trinity was JFK, RFK, and MLK.  Like many kids in those days, we had a framed photo of JFK in our house.  My parents made sure we had a "better life" than they did, well how could that not happen? I was born during a time of great growth while they were born just before the Depression.  We had multiple TVs in the house and I had a wonderful room growing up, always had all that I wanted.  I think what was different was that information that came into the house was a shared experience, not a solitary one as it is today.  We were allowed to read the paper at the table, because we were expected to discuss and talk about the days news and events.  We were also supposed to express our opinions (politics was the ONLY thing we could express our opinions about, so we did - a lot).   I came of age in the 70s and 80s (Miss Britt was born in 1980, I graduated from high school in 1980), while there were seeds of narcissism being planted then, people were generally still aware and active - No Nukes, post -Vietnam, Watergate, Middle East peace treaty, the Iran Contra scandal....the list goes on.  Perhaps my contemporaries had similar upbringing.  I never knew a time when we weren't "aware".

I see the generational disparities greatly today, but I also see my mom's generation's influence on my children and how that makes them a bit apart of the general malaise.  Ok...we tend to watch the news more than read the news at dinner, but my mom, at 80, still reads two printed newspapers a day, and she passes along stories to my children and me and we talk about them. My kids have been known to come home from school and pick up her papers and read them.  Because of that, they are pretty outspoken about who they support (and not surprisingly, we're in different camps!) and we talk about it, we argue about it.  We've watched the debates and discussed them.  They are different than most of their friends.  My daughter wants to debate politics at school, but most of her friends are like ....."yeah, right, so dull....." or parrot their parents views.  THAT makes me sad and scared for this country.  That makes me very angry at the disgraceful debate that occurred this week - apathy and bitterness will divide us and we need to see the riches in this country not as material ones, but as the riches of being able to have an opinion in the first place. 

Miss Britt, you have every right to be angry and dammit, you should be angry.  You can be angry and cling to hope - it may be a necessary combination to affect the change we so desperately need.

Starting off on a lighter note

I got this in the mail yesterday:

From Mandy Bags on Etsy.  It's a bag made of recycled fabrics. It's light, just large enough for managing on the weekdays, when my briefcase takes up all my larger stuff.  My boy Casanova, liked it too...

 

Ebby preferred to blend in with the vases: