Vegetables and activity make me happy

Sometimes I find myself underwhelmed by my online activity. I suspect I am not alone. As I sat back wondering there was a better website or platform I should look at, about different subjects than I normally do, I more and more felt like I just didn't want to be online right then. (There is a connection to be made about Socrates' unexamined life quote, but I'll let someone else make it.) I realized what I really wanted to do was move furniture around. I suspect not as many people get those urges, but I could be wrong.

My husband asked me not to do it right then as he was in the middle of something...so you'd better believe that as soon as I'd had breakfast this morning I hopped to it. There were books and other papers moving between two bookshelves, and one bookshelf moving into another room. There was also a lot of dust, as well as some pleasant surprises and depressing discoveries. (Did I mention that the reason I love Marie Kondo's tidying so much is because it gives me permission to get rid of "gifts" I don't want? Although perhaps not enough today.) It was a fun little diversion, but what it really drove home is that I have too many books and pieces of paper, in spite of my best efforts.

...Which is maybe why the "shopping" I enjoy best is for food, the ultimate disposable commodity. But I don't love Whole Foods, at all, for all of the reasons I've gone over, yet I find myself there for convenience more often than I want to. I'm happy to do more of my shopping at my local markets, and I'm fortunate to have choices, but I'd also like to support local farmers. Unfortunately, the farmers market near me isn't always convenient, and the one I used to love in Copley is even less so. 

But the world has changed in the last decade, so I'm able to order from a farm in Massachusetts when I also order the milk and dairy that my family eats (and which they'll be eating much less of after the next month). The timing of the order can be fiddly, but somehow I was able to work it out for this week and tada. 

 

Summer's bounty

Lousy lighting as usual, but that's melon, pepper, eggplant, radishes, beets, peaches(!), kale, zucchini, and green beans. I have plans--I have enough onions and garlic to make soufico happen, and if I cook the peaches down my husband can enjoy them, too--but I'm willing to let all of that go if my sons want to go to town on the kale and string beans. (And I'm happy to let them eat all of the melon...okay, maybe happy is the wrong word, but I'll let them.) 

All in all, this is a really good Monday--and I know no one hears that a lot.

Deb in the City

Boston is full of green power spots

I had a physical therapy appointment on Wednesday, then a sudden errand at my credit union. I also wanted to celebrate my boys' return home.

I had my husband drop me off at the credit union. Ran my errand, then walked to my PT appointment. After that, I walked to the Boston Public Library (of course), then met my boys at the Prudential Center to exchange South Korean won and then go to lunch.

It was not an earth-shattering day, but I loved it. Big bonus was walking along the Fens. We should of course continue to interrogate our ideas of beauty and the origins of why some get to enjoy it more than others...but sometimes it is a relief to just enjoy it.

Deb in the City

Sometimes gifts are love

My general orientation with material things is "no, please, I don't want it." As I've mentioned, my condo is extremely small, and having grown up in clutter and chaos, space is the ultimate luxury.

But sometimes, even people like me make an exception.

They caught me

This is the collection of gifts I received from my family in South Korea via my children earlier this week, next to vases my father got me two decades ago, also from South Korea. Handkerchiefs, because I'm trying not to use disposable things. A pencil and pen case, because a writer has to write with something. A travel journal, almost too beautiful to write in (but watch me). A beautiful silken bag...to slip my large journal into. A crocheted flower pot, because I do love flowers (and needle arts). And a card from a cousin I wish I saw more of.

Perfect, but I'm not surprised.

Deb in the City

Perspective

I've been trapped in the suburbs since Friday afternoon and unable to leave until tomorrow morning. This place is starting to feel a little more like my family's home and not my mother's former home, but it doesn't make me miss home much less. Worse, I haven't had much company this weekend since my husband had a couple of errands he needed to run and then a professional appointment this morning. 

Maybe I could have gone for a walk--but no. I was always scheduled to meet someone here at noon, so there wasn't much of an adventure to be had. But it's a nice day and between 7:30, when my sister's bus comes, and 12, I could have walked to the quaint city center. However, I got a call at 7:35 that the elusive Floor Guys would be coming over at 8:05, so after I ate my breakfast my husband and I were set to work moving furniture (and going through yet more detritus). 

I had time after they left (and someone came to check that they had indeed arrived) to write some emails. I was just finishing that up when the cleaners showed up. Always a pleasure to see them--they're one of the reasons I find the house more pleasant--but since I wasn't expecting them, I didn't plan around them (including to bring my checkbook) and then it was that much longer that I had to stay for them.

I complain to my husband about how trapped I feel via text. He kindly offers to console me with my comfort of choice when he gets home, then tells me that someone he knows just lost a family member in a way all too reminiscent of how I lost a family member last year. A little bit later, a friend contacts me to reach out because they're having health problems. I'm a poor choice to contact since I have no medical training, but there's a reason I'm one of the better options (not my story to tell).

Yeah, maybe there are worse fates than the one I'm enduring today.

I get to see my boys tomorrow, eat cake (or watch them eat cake), and sleep in my own bed tomorrow. That isn't soon enough, but in the meantime I can sit out on a deck and overlook some green. It's not what I want, but maybe it will do.

Deb in the City

Scenes from an adventure

I did get out and take a walk yesterday, and it was lovely. I made it to the Charles but not the Atlantic--next time.

It was just what I needed after a few weeks of planning--excuse me, organizing--a week of missing my kids, and right before I jump back into phone calls for democracy and a long weekend in the suburbs.

So much beauty, and my good fortune to share in it.

Deb in the City

Breathing room in time for an adventure

My sons left for South Korea (along with one of their older sisters) last Saturday and won't be coming back until Tuesday. You'd think I'd have taken the time to kick back, but of course not. I took the time to scrub the kitchen--that was a lot of moving stuff around--as well as clean their room. Oh my god. You don't even know. Imagine a dorm room that needs to be maintained every week but instead gets serviced every quarter. If you're lucky.

There was a lot of dust, some new sheets, pillows, and drapes, and my "suggested" donation pile. They are never buying clothes again unless they've gotten rid of something first (the same goes for their father and kitchen gadgets), and until they've proven that they can take care of their things. There's a lot that's squeezed into their bedroom, and I appreciate that it's tough to keep things orderly. But since 1) the computers and long desks were their demand and 2) they picked out and in some cases demanded their own clothing, yeah, they can manage laundry and vacuuming once a week.

In other news, I'm done with the lobbying I was in charge of this year for a climate volunteer organization I'm with. Hurray. We had two meetings, and one definitely went better than the other. Lesson learned--maybe. Some things were out of our control, and that of the national organization who led the effort. But the important thing is that it's done, and thank goodness, because I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I had to deal with an unpleasant exchange yesterday and it pretty much sucked the life out of me for a few hours.

I've done my job, at least for today. My husband, sadly, is out of the house, but I think it's time for me to have an adventure. Downtown Boston, here I come.

Deb in the City

So busy I don't even have time to complain about how busy I am

Until, of course, now.

I was willing to go about my business--which was busy enough as it was--until the "establishment" wing of the Democratic Party quite clearly pushed Biden out of the race. I did not want that to happen, in large part because people had been signalling since late 2021 that *of course* Vice President Kamala Harris couldn't possibly succeed him. My position: if Biden was going to bow out, then they needed to replace him with Harris immediately. An actual convention fight would have been suicide. 

Oh hey--looks like tens of millions of people were just as irate as I was, and Harris easily locked up her delegates and raised eye-watering amounts of money very, very quickly. 

A few weeks before that, I had raised my hand and said I'd volunteer to help organize lobbying our senators for the Jewish Earth Alliance. Organizing is always a little running around, but it would be over as of August 8. So fine.

A few days before Biden's announcement, I had been asked to help organize non-partisan phone banking. That is also more than a bit of running around, but that also had an end date--and it was for a good cause. I agreed, and we started planning.

And then the announcement came, and I was emailing like a crazy person. When democracy is on the line, it's not the time to whine about how much work I have ahead of me. Relax after I'm sure we've pushed back a fascist. 

It's coming along--there's more work to be done, but we've got time. It's one of the few times in my life I'm not worried about annoying people--again, democracy vs. fascism. And even if some people are giving me a side eye, or just straight up glaring at me, I *know* a number of them are going to come running later. (How do I know this? Oh, I don't know, maybe because I lived through November 2016 through January 6,  2021.) I don't see my job as dragging everyone into something they don't want to do; I see myself as making things available for them when they are.

I still have a lot going on in my messy personal life, but I'm kind of grateful for that. Isn't that a big part of what we're hoping to preserve?

Deb in the City