Fruit platter

I have assumed my corporate mantle, in spite of Mother Nature's efforts to bring Seattle to its knees. It was no triumph of humanity over nature that got me out of an iced-over airport, just patience and dogged determination. After my 24-hour travel odyssey, I was rewarded with a hotel room, and a upgrade to the executive level.

There is a certain comfort for the weary road warrior to know exactly what to expect: the branded soft bed with choice of pillows, big fluffy towels, a desk and huge-screen TV with an assortment of cable channels. Unfortunately, the food is nearly always equally as predictable: a breakfast bar of bagels, toast and pastries, with juice, cut fruit, coffee and tea.  The fruit platter, regardless of the season, is a prime example of homogenized food: cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, watermelon and pineapple; only the garnish (raspberries and blackberries this week) changes.

Hotel lunches offers up a little more variety, but afternoon snacks are invariably a cookie and coffee. It's no wonder that business travelers stream out of hotels for dinner, seeking a hole in the wall that dares to serve something other than chicken Caesar salad or steak and potatoes.

It was in this context that a couple of us set out in the hour between the end of the meetings and needing to catch a flight home--anything to get some fresh air before heading back into a sealed box. So imagine our surprise and delight in turning the corner to be greeted by rows of easy-ups: a farmer's market. Tables groaning under baked goods, fruits, meats--real, seasonal food; the people lining up to buy the food outnumbered the sellers.

In that moment, the reminder that the seasons still exist not just as snowstorms to disturb flight plans and that the earth provides without shipping pineapples across the globe, I relaxed. Just the sight of frost-kissed greens, and the promise in that oasis of bounty in an icy concrete jungle, and I could feel the tension leave my body and my shoulders drop.

Turnips and kale, bread and eggs; not cantaloupe and strawberries. Farmers in the city, life in winter.

End of the road

In the fall of 1977, my parents decided to splurge: they bought a new car. Lest you think these Depression babies were throwing caution to the wind, note that their thrift showed through: they waited until the end of the model year to be able to negotiate on the price, and they eschewed nearly every option--including a radio. It was also only the second new car either of them had purchased.

It was bad enough from a teenager's viewpoint that the car was so incredibly sensible (shoulder belts before they were mandated), but the radio was insult to injury. Still, it meant my brother inherited the old one--a 1968 model, and I got to learn to drive in a new car.

It turned out to be one of those models that never had any major issues along the way, and when I returned to the US with a husband in tow in 1989, my parents gifted us the car to serve as our second wheels. All we needed was a house with a two-car garage. It was still shiny, with a just a few dings and rattles, but still, no major issues.

Our family grew, we purchased a wagon, and the old Volvo became Darling Husband's classic ride. The Mom-mobile changed a couple of times over the years, but the blue beast kept on going.

We bought touch-up paint in increasingly larger containers and gave up trying to wax it to shiny. In 2001, after a fellow blue wagon got totaled, it gifted its front seats and floor mats to the '77.

For its 30th birthday, we bought the car a tank of premium and new classic car plates, along with a lifetime exemption from renewal and tailpipe checks. It purred and kept going.

This year, with a teenager, we joked that if it was good enough for me to learn to drive in, it was good enough for him. And so Jr. Firefighter slipped behind the wheel and learned to drive.  He dutifully noted that the turn signal on one side wasn't always lighting, so we took it in for some work. We ended up rebuilding the taillight, since no new replacement part could be found.

And then, four days after Jr. Firefighter earned the magic piece of plastic, the car spiked a fever. No amount of coolant seemed to help, and the mechanic found the cancer had spread to several areas. Words like "machining" were uttered. Like the old Quaker carriage, all the parts seemed to be failing at once. I think, said the mechanic, it's time.

Right on schedule, the first of the seven stages of grief, denial, kicked in: we could just fix it, really, it just needed some quality time and some new parts. But when we started attaching numbers to the rather long list, it became clear that this car had come to the end of its run.

A charity that specializes in fixing up old reliable cars declined; even for a Volvo, they said, we don't think it's worth it. The guy in Ballard who does electric conversions said it was too young (!); he only takes pre-1975 Volvos. So today, we shall take a last family photo in front of it one last time, and sign papers to release our interest in it to a salvage yard. It has been a very good run.

But it has also been a model of bucking the trend, a manifestation of our values: maintaining a car is always less expensive and more environmentally friendly than buying new.

New, the car cost $7900, and we are actually getting a few dollars from the yard: $256. That averages to about $225 a year for car ownership. If we had followed the national average and replaced it with the equivalent new model every five years, we would have spent over $130,000; if we'd bucked the trend and waited 10 years between cars, we would still have spent close to $75,000.

Driving it until it can no longer be driven and sending it to a pull-a-part yard is "using it up, wearing it out." Its parts will help keep others in its model (made until 1993) alive, as we eke out as much use before it ends up in a crusher--to be melted into steel and recycled into a new car.

As we considered replacing it--because a three-driver family needs three cars, right?--we quickly realized that we will never be able to repeat this performance. Darling Husband will keep an eye on the classifieds, but for now, we shall remain a two-car, three-bus pass family with a healthy savings account and a clear conscience.

Full day

There is a delicious crispness in the air, the one that the poets among us wax, well, poetically about. The shifted hour means there is a wee sliver of light when the alarm rings (for I can no longer rely on the sun to wake me), and the warm man next to me makes me yearn for hibernation. But it is evening for my Parisian client, who is waiting to hear from me so she can head towards her own duvet, so rise I must.

Bleary-eyed, I wake the sleeping devices on my desk and they beep and blink to life. The file has arrived unharmed from its transatlantic trek, and looks to be in good shape. (Would that it were that easy for us!) I will work, but it will not be long hours of drudgery. Very good news indeed. There is time to join the waking men folk for breakfast.

I suppose I should put on lipstick, don a frilly apron, and produce fresh croissants, but this is a work week, so the toaster will have to do. Little One opts for toast flooded with butter and topped with cinnamon sugar, washed down with cocoa. Darling Husband does the honors, heating up a mug for himself, laced with peppermint syrup (he is no fan of pumpkin spice). I snuggle into his back, and make my own, laced with coffee, for I must be alert to understand the vagaries of smart buses and on-board telemetry (hey, isn’t that what my car has?).

But I am peckish too, and note that the boys’ foray in supermarket hunting has brought home my old friend Crumpet. Toasted twice, smeared with butter, I take a bite. Something is missing, I think, and wonder if there is an open jar of last year’s blood orange marmalade. No, but there is that grape jelly that didn’t quite gel that the boys keep asking for in their lunch. Sure enough, it is perfect, a tangy, sweet foil for the cool crisp morning.

But lest you think this is just a poetic snippet, and that my family treks out into the dawn with full bellies and perfect love in their hearts, a plot emerges: Little One shouts out, "I lost my tooth!" And indeed, there it is, the second this week (I pity the poor parent who will have to deal with two coming in in quick succession, but she will have to take it up with the Tooth Fairy). My day is now complete, with a wry smile for my husband, who knows tonight's date will take on a whole new dimension when we get home. Kisses all around, a trek back into the house for the forgotten bits, and off they go, as the breeze turns to splatty rain.

A perfect start to the day.

Hung out to dry

There is something about real estate. I love traipsing through houses, pretending you live in that perfectly staged living room, spotless kitchen and freshly made bed. So when I heard about zHome, a "revolutionary, 10-unit townhome development that uses smart design and cutting edge technologies to radically reduce its environmental impacts," I had to see it for myself. Besides, they advertised an EV charging station out front.

And impressive engineering it is: the earthwork is a true work of art, moving water around, under and through, using grey water for flushing toilets and irrigation, and double-filtering drinking water. Electricity is generated from photovoltaic panels on the roof, and radiant floors are heated using geothermal heat. Surfaces are honest, responsibly sourced, and the spaces are light and devoid of that "new house" smell.

And it seems to encourage more responsible behavior: having only a one-car garage (and presumably only one car) and squeezing into 1600 square feet seems spartan in these suburbs, where 3,000 and 4,000 square feet and three-car garages are the norm. But as our house ages and demands more of our time and energy, and we look to simplify our lives, the idea of living in a smaller space and with less stuff is incredibly appealing.

We drove up in our red LEAF, plugged in, and started poking around. First up was the largest unit: walk in the door, there's a bedroom. Right next to the front door, with a sliding glass door. A bit public, but maybe useful for a home office.

A bit farther in, and there's a one-car garage. But not only is the charger on the street, but this is a three-bedroom unit, on the far fringe of the suburbs. If this is designed for a family, it will be rough going, as bus service is very sketchy way out here, and there is nothing within walking distance, since the planned community around it has yet to be built. The closest shopping is 20 minutes away, and the city a good half hour by freeway. Maybe both parents work at home, or maybe they're independently wealthy, since the price tag is not within the reach of the average Joe: $625,000.

I peek in the spacious storage closet under the stairway, and inside it is a high tech geothermal heat pump for the radiant floor heat. Lovely, comfy, efficient and truly green credentialed. But some boiler-loving contractor has placed it at the front of the closet, blocking the way to using the rest. Result: a good 15 square feet of inaccessible closet space in the garage.

Up the responsibly-sourced wood stairs to the living area, covered in the same responsibly-sourced floors. The kitchen is stunning, but after the initial impression, we realize there isn't a single cupboard large enough for a stack of plates; only drawers below. The corner features a "lost space" cupboard instead of a useful corner solution, reducing storage space yet again. Back in the larder, shelving and a closet, with--you guessed it--water filters covering the back of the closet. Imagine moving all your stored items every 6 months to change the filter and you start to see.

Top floor, another large closet, this time with a stacked washer and dryer. I love that someone understands putting the washer where the dirty laundry is, but the school of hard knocks reminds me that laundry likes to congregate before washing, sorting itself into pile of like colors and such. Here, since there is no space for even a box of eco-friendly detergent, I can see the piles littering the hallway on laundry day (every day is laundry day when you have kids). And while I love the energy star dryer, I note no place anywhere to put up drying racks; perhaps the balcony, overlooking the neighbor's?

In the end, we are disappointed that so much was done right, only to have these efforts marred by apparent trivialities that work against the stated intent: downsize to one car, but locating the homes in a place that has no transportation infrastructure; use efficient technology and reduce the square footage, but then situate the mechanicals in a way that space cannot be used; and omitting spaces for the kinds of occupant behavior that affects our environmental impact at least as much as technology.

We note with chagrin that the brand-new building next door has heated storage units for rent. Perhaps they saw an opportunity.

Over the fence

In the localization world where I cut my professional teeth, one of the worst things you could do was "throw something over the fence," a practice akin to painting someone into the corner and then walking away, leaving them with figuring out how to get out. Management learned early on that the right thing--and the most advantageous--is to think ahead, involving everybody down the line as early as possible, to make everyone's life easier, and the product better in the end.

But throwing things over the fence plays out in our personal lives, as manufacturer's bundle things together in odd multiples (three smoke detectors in a package, really?), package them against flooding and raining toads (why does a micro-SD card need a macro hard clamshell?), and plan for obsolescence (repeat the steps above when the first one fails or is replaced by something new or better). That we have to deal with the waste stream is not their problem anymore. They've thrown it over the fence, and we as individuals and a society will have to deal with it.

It is not coincidental that as I read Ray Anderson's Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, I am reminded that "over the fence" and "away," as in places we throw things, simply do not exist. Shedding our own responsibilities simply places them on someone else's shoulders. Unless we can close the loop.

Long-time readers may recall the situation where French pigs were contaminated by tainted grapefruit rinds shipped from Brazil. That no one thought that sending kitchen scraps (albeit industrial) halfway across the globe while waste from French cuisines was likely landing in landfills points to someone not thinking. (I should point out though, that the Germans get the packaging challenge right: you can leave packaging with merchants, which means they put a lot of pressure on their suppliers to create less of it in the first place.)

And so, when we noticed that our neighbors had acquired a pair of chickens, we saw an opportunity: instead of putting those kitchen scraps into the municipal compost stream, we asked them if they thought their ladies might enjoy the carrot tops and apple cores. Indeed, they would, and could they give us a few eggs in return?

And so we have the happy solution of throwing a bowl of scraps from fixing supper over the fence--literally. And the hens don't think it's a problem at all. Quite the contrary, if their happy clucks are any indication.

Dated

My list is long, but not exhaustive: the produce has been piling up all week, and it's time to put it by for winter. There is an enormous zucchini, five pounds of pie cherries, a dozen beets (yellow, red, and pretty-pink stripes) and blackberries, peaches and blueberries (a surprise from our overgrown yard). I have jars, sugar, lids, even flour and tapioca, but I somehow cannot find my rhythm. I am fragile and disorganized, slipping into crankiness at the drop of a hat.

I know I should simply decide which task I will do first; That I should do the mise for all, and everything will come together. But boys are hungry, and their puttering derails me again, and I snap at one of them, light-heartedly, I think, but not lightly enough, it seems, and tears flow: first theirs, then mine.

Why, I wonder, is parenting so hard today? When did my delightful toddlers become a complex, moody teen, and one on the cusp of tweendom? Buck up, I tell myself, and I pull out a freezer bag and a sharpie, and start to label it with the contents and the date. The date. And then I remember, I am supposed to be parenting a teenaged girl, and this was the date that our hopes were dashed. The tears flow harder momentarily, but once I give a name to my grief, I can face it. Darling husband comes to my rescue, reminding a broken child why Mommy is sad. A sticky hug, and I can proceed.

Finding peace in my pain (for my heart will never heal entirely) I can pare, shred, measure and stir. The enormous zucchini turns into 3 mini loaves and a dozen muffins (only some of which actually make it into the freezer, since men folk keep walking through the kitchen); fallen crabapples begin their journey to pectin; pie cherries release their juices to be thickened, and berries line up to be assigned pots and jars.

And one by one, as each task is done, each bag and each jar is wiped clean and readied for the larder or freezer. The sharpie etches the contents, and the date. As if I could ever forget.

 

Two-car garage

On a summer's day two decades ago, Darling Husband and I had a date: off to the Sears store we went, where the big lug took my hand an led me to the tool department and told me to pick out a table saw. As if I wasn't in love with him before, I fell head over heels all over again. Over the years, it has seen use, building ash nightstands to hold up lamps from the pottery down the lane from where we held our wedding dinner in La Borne; new bathroom cabinets for an astoundingly turquoise 60s bathroom; a custom shelving unit in the kitchen to hold my cookbooks in style; a play kitchen that both boys have outgrown.

But lately, the saw has seen precious little use: there are only so many pieces of furniture we can fit in the house, and so many hours in a day (and there seem to be fewer of those, not sure if it's age or kids or both).

If you drive into any American town, there on the outskirts, next to the freeway entrance, you'll see them: storage facilities. Drive through neighborhoods, and you'll see them too, attached to houses: garages, with cars parked in front of them. We have a car parked on the street, largely because of the table saw (and the wood stockpiled next to it, leftovers from projects that might come in handy someday).

And so it was time. The new car needed a place to sleep and charge at night, and it made no sense to park the other one outside. The scraps turned out to be enough to floor the hallway and build a shed to house the push mower (in the backyard, where it is used). But there was just no room for the big saw.

For the most part, this purge of stuff has been uplifting, leaving me feeling lighter and free (and padding my wallet with 20-dollar bills). But I'd been lying if I said that saying goodbye to an inanimate chunk of steel was easy. I will miss the dimming of the lights when it revs up, the whirr of the motor, the sound of the blade biting into wood, and even the mound of sawdust.

The giant plum tree overhanging the drive has been pruned, the car charger installed, and a shiny new garage door opener lets the red car cruise silently in. As for the saw, it has moved to a house on the islands, to find second life building someone's dream home for his retirement. I wish them both well.