Who's your daddy?

Stepmother.
Get a picture in your head?

Stepfather.
Have another picture?

How about stepgrandfather? Or stepsister?

Can you find the steps in this picture?

All these words create images in our minds. These words frame our ideas about the relationships they describe. Once, there was a time when the prefix "step" implied the death of a parent. One had a stepmother or stepfather because the "real" mother or father had died. Today the word implies the death of a marriage, not of a parent.

And what about the things step does not mean? What is the opposite of step? Real? Blood? As in, my real mother or my blood brother? For whatever reasons the prefix step has negative connotations. A stepmother is wicked. A stepsister is a competitor. And stepgrandfather is not recognized by any spell check on my computer.

Within my own family, I have lots of steps. I am a stepchild to some, a stepmother to others. A mother to some, and a child to others. And I am painfully aware of the negative connotations of the prefix. It frustrates me to no end. I think this negative connotation is stigma. Stigma about divorce, specifically. And stigma is not real- it is a cultural construct.

I know many an enlightened stepfamily that wrestles with word stigma. Some choose to drop the prefix. Then you end up with kids who call their father "Dad" and call their mother's husband "Dad." I think this is an effort to recreate a born family, a "normal" family, one that has not been exposed to divorce. Again, we see stigma here; a family that has experienced divorce has a wound to recover from. By using "intact" family designations, the family can sort of pretend there was no divorce. From my perspective, the wound is the unhealthy marriage that precipitated the divorce, and divorce is the healing.

I think the stigma cuts both ways. Let's examine the word stepfather. Not only do we attach negative stigma to the word stepfather, we assign positive value to the word father. A child wishing to express a sense of deep connectivity, closeness, loving and trust to a stepfather may find herself literally at a loss for words. Another no-right-word-available situation is when a child is estranged from a parent, but calls the parent "Mom" or "Dad". Is there a word for an estranged parent? Estranga-dad, maybe? Or Notta-mom?

We do not have reactions, either positive or negative, to words like "cousin" or "aunt." It is the prefix step (or its absence) that sets off the reactions. I think it is time to let go of those stigmas. Those reactions. Time to remember that almost half of the children in the United States have stepfamilies. Time for the prefix step to imply a built family, not a lesser family or the opposite of a "real" family. Time to use the prefix step without stigma. Time for stepwords to be associated with the same rich texture of loving that other relational descriptors enjoy. Time to acknowledge that not just birth parents have a meaningful, parental relationships with children. Our concept of family connectivity is light years ahead of our vocabulary and it is time to acknowledge that the intact nuclear family is no longer a valid gold standard.

We still have the issue of what does one call one's stepparent? I've never seen a kid on the playground yelling "Stepmommy, push me again please!" The use of first names does not do justice to the parental nature of the relationship. My own personal solution has been to create title names and bypass the whole word stigma issue. My stepchildren call me Mishi, which is a diminutive variation of the Hebrew word mashpiah. Mashpiah means mentor, guide, and supporter. My children call their stepfather Mashi, which is the male version.

So when someone asks me, "Is that your real sister or your stepsister?" I say, "Yes." And when someone asks me "Who is your real dad?" I say, "I've got two." And when someone asks me, "Are those all your children?" I say, "You bet."

Six things you don't know about me

Tina tagged me with this meme: six things you don't know about me that all have something in common.

1. I really enjoy chasing down squash bugs with insecticidal soap. The bottle says once every three days, but it is so relaxing for me that I do it every night.
   
2. Tomato horn worms completely freak me out but I put on a brave face when the kids are around because I don't want them to be scared of bugs.
3. Three weeks ago I got so mad that I threw a garden rake through one of our windows. Aside from the window and my pride, no one was injured.
4. On my stationary bike, I pretend I am riding 30 minutes to and from work each day.
5. We got the Roku box from Netflix and I love it. I pick all the movies/shows the kids can watch and there is not a single ad.
   
6. I prepare one large meal a day, usually around 3, and the rest of the time we just graze, snack, or don't eat.
   

How many calories do I use in a day?

I am not a farmer or a welder or a cowboy. I am mostly a teacher and a wife, a maid, cook, nurse and a driver. Sometimes a professional health coach, often a reader of print or screen, and at least once per day an eater of delicious food. So is my life active, sedentary, vigorous? How many calories do I really need? How close to correct is that standard 2,000 calorie diet information on the side of the milk box? I imagined that my life required far less than the standard 2,000 calories- I do not do a lot of physical activity. I decided to find out.

First, I (very roughly) broke my day into its physical components, averaging weekly activity into daily units. Then I went to the Toolele County Health Department to look up how many calories those activities consumed. What I discovered: I need about 2,600 calories a day. I have no idea how many calories I actually consume in a day, but I need 2,600. This sounds really high to me and I wonder if my numbers are off somewhere.

UPDATE 8.11.2008
I had math errors in my spread sheet. My daily total is now 2,400, which still sounds high. I tried counting my calories yesterday, but discovered this requires measuring.

The joy of the only child- not just for only children

With my oldest daughter away at sleep-over camp, I am having the delicious experience of solo-time with my younger son. Just the two of us. Reading. Playing. Watching movies. Wandering around outside. Giggling. Answering his stream of questions/needs without the competing stream of sister's questions/needs. Not having to "tag" along to big sister's events; having important events of his own.

Things are so simple with one child. Unfettered. Direct. One set of needs, one set of snacks, one focus of my attention. In many ways, I feel that second (or more) children get the shorter end of the stick in terms of parental attention. The stick is lengthened by the love and attention of siblings, but still. It is easy to confuse frustration with a younger child with frustration at having to meet the needs of two children. It is easy to be annoyed with the younger child, especially in comparison to an older sibling who is on the cusp of independence.

These three weeks that we have together, alone, are simply magic. I've fallen in love with my son all over again- his sweet face and ancient eyes, his fierce commitment to justice and fairness, the way his mouth twitches into a smile as he comprehends a subtle bit of humor. I am back into all the blissful bits of mothering. Instead of just the work.

The thing about living in the country...

The garden. The garden I planted at the right time with the right plants and the right irrigation and all that jazz. The bugs really like it, too. A lot. Very few things are surviving the affection off the bugs: the garlic, the onions, the horseradish. The rest is pretty much eaten up completely or not thriving. The bugs I can't really do anything about- I am not willing to use chemicals so the solution is better varieties of plants. The not thriving I can do something about, but I have no idea what. First step is to get my soil tested at the cooperative extension.

The chicks. Which vanished overnight without even a trace feather. All six of them. The neighbor spotted and killed a fox at his coop, but we'll never really know what happened to our chicks. Gabriel was devastated. Then we lost one chicken a night for three nights in a row, despite closing them up in their coop. There were feathers for them, I guess because they were big enough to put up a fight. We're down to two hens and the rooster. One of the hens is broody, so who knows? Maybe she'll hatch some chicks for us. I'm not holding my breath. I've not mentioned this to Gabriel. He hasn't wanted to come with me to feed the chickens since the chicks went missing. All that guarding them from the cats, from the cold, from the bigger chickens. All that energy he put in, gone, *poof* just like that.

And then there are the hicks. The ones down the road with the Confederate Shrine on their front yard. The ones across the street who informed us, when we first moved in, that "We don't want to be friendly with you people." The ones further up the road who have NO TRESPASSING signs and chain on their driveway. The ones in town who rev the engines of their souped up gas-guzzling trucks and shoot eat-shit-and-die looks at brown faces. The ones who pull the Wall-Mart Yank-and-Spank on their screaming two year olds. The ones who look at me blankly at best, and suspiciously at worst, when my Jewish heritage comes into the conversation. The farmer next door who keeps mowing on our side of the property line, right before he sprays chemicals all over his land. Chemicals that don't stay on "his" side of the line, but drift all over my house instead.

And last on my (current) list of Thing I Didn't Know About Living in the Country is: the driving. A lot of it. Driving to friends because none of the kids' peers live in the neighborhood. Driving to classes. To co-op. To the grocery. To Chinese. To everywhere. I don't usually appreciate the news spin of CNN, but this article on the New American Dream, Walking Urbanism, really caught my attention. Added to this is the newly acquired knowledge that we live within 100 miles of an active nuclear power plant.

I am feeling, suddenly and without warning, that I don't want to be here anymore. Is this feeling real? Or am I bored and fabricating a thing to focus on? Is there anywhere that is really any better than this?

Melina's super yummy and often requested salad dressing recipe

I came up with this dressing in college and have been dousing my salads with it every since. Many people have asked me for the recipe, which I dutifully re-type and send each time. Last night we had a wonderful dinner with our nephews, one of whom wanted the recipe. I've decided to immortalize it on a blog post.

• 1/2 cup Tamari sauce (soy sauce will work in a pinch)
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar (I used the seasoned kind, but plain also works)
• slightly less than 1/2 cup water
  
• 1 teaspoon sugar (replace with honey for thicker dressing)
• 1.5 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1.5 teaspoons onion powder
• a splash of sherry, if you have it on hand
• once you've mixed it up, have a taste and adjust the seasonings as necessary
• Shake VERY VIGOROUSLY before using- the seasonings tend to settle at the bottom

Try adding sunflower seeds and raisins to your salad along with this dressing- a wonderful combination of sweet, salty, and savory. This does not need to be refrigerated and is great on salad, meats of all kinds, fish, seafood, and stale toast.

My eco-footprint according to EcoFoot.Org

Tina tagged me with a curious quiz created by EcoFoot.Org. The quiz informed me that it would take 3.2 planets to support the human race if everyone lived like I do. This troubled me. I was hoping for at least a one, if not a less than one. So, like any good scientist, I started messing with the criteria to see what would happen.

I morphed from a four person milk-egg-meat eating household, living in a 2,000 sf green design home with running water, a car, and 10 hours of airplane flight per year to a one person vegan household, living in an apartment with no running water, no car, and zero hours of airplane flight per year. My new footprint: 2.3 planets.

Hmmmmmm.

I played with all of the options and could not get a score of "1 planet" no matter what I did with the variables. I can't tell if this is a glitch in the program or operator error: maybe after one hour of futzing with this I still didn't pick the right combo of variables for a sustainable score. Perhaps it is the secret true message of the test. My guess is that if I could adjust for the total population of the earth that the score would change. In other words, with almost seven billion human beings on the planet, there is no shade of green that is green enough. But if there were, say, only 3 million of us, we could use running water and electricity in good health.

Sometimes I think that our standards of living (running water, antibiotics, electricity, etc.) are simply incompatible with our resources. If we want to live in mud huts and die in childbirth, we've got it made. But if we want to live sophisticated, healthy lives, the planet dies. Is there a middle path here? Anywhere? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Reggae tribute to Barack Obama

Roots Reggae music leaves me feeling energized, close to Great Spirit, hopeful, heartbroken, determined, and ALIVE. All at the same time.

This music is a vehicle for religious expression for me; voices raised for the cause of peace and unity. Papa Robbie's postcast features an entire play list of Reggae music selected to support Barack Obama, including the lead track Barack Obama by activist and musician Cocoa Tea.


Click here for code to embed this play list.

On feeling visible, or I do not work alone

My friend Rain once pointed out to me that most other people work with other adults, other witnesses, and they get to see one another's offices and go to meetings together. They get to see how different people do the same things, differently. Homeschooling moms, though, work alone for long stretches. We often work in groups, too. But not for 40 hours a week.

Sometimes, this makes me feel isolated.

Early this morning, feeling drunk on the first sunlight in a week, I snapped a picture of my fridge and tagged my blogging friends to do the same. As I was driving to co-op today, I thought, Hmmmm. That fridge thing is sort of personal. Seeing pictures of my peers' fridges was, surprisingly, incredibly intimate. Why is that?

This is an important aspect of my life, packed with emotional context and health consequences, and yet, one of the most isolating tasks I do. I call it foodage: the task of thinking about, preparing, serving, cleaning, storing, and re-serving delicious, nutritious, pleasing, healthful food to myself, my partner, and my children, at least three times a day, sometimes to-go.

I have lost things in my fridge, like a dozen Yorgo's Bagels, three tubs of homemade lentil soup, shrimp scampi, and five rotten pieces of ginger. Today I found something in my fridge: my sense of belonging to a community of working women, all of whom experience foodage in their own way. They have large bottles of katsup. They have edible flotsam in the freezer. They have miso and tofu and nuts. The have prolifically breeding condiments in their doors. They have animal food in their drawers. They have soda, chicken nuggets, cream cheese, and frozen prepared food. They have organic food that costs a small fortune. They have beer. In short, I AM NOT ALONE.

Gratitude to all the brave women who flashed their fridge and
to Mashi for taking over the grocery shopping.

Inspriational quotes

Every once in a while, I hear something that strikes me right to the soul. It is an inspiring experience. Here are my latest three waaaa waaaa waaaa full-body-goose-bump quotable moments. Every time I read them I feel validated and happy and REAL.

Janis Dean
[We try to]... find a balance between accountability to class objectives and accountability to our ideals about enjoying learning.

Hot (anonymous) homeschooling mama
My husband watches porn on his laptop on one side of the bed. I read some well-crafted erotica on my laptop on the other side of the bed. We're ready to rip each other's clothes off when we're done!

Matisyahu
... Jah please take me up so Babylon don't take me shopping.

Twisted: No whip on my tornado

We live in an era where natural disasters happen right along side our normal lives. A village of 200 would have been devastated by a tornado. A city of 80,000 just closes a few roads, all of which have alternate routes, and we go on. To further distance us from the physical reality of a a natural disaster, relief efforts are coordinated almost exclusively by the Red Cross. They are asking people not to send food, clothing, or any items. Why? Because it is easier to give tornado victims money than to coordinate volunteer services. Another reality of our era is that community services are corporatized. We don't have to know, depend on, or help our neighbors. We just send cash.

I joked with my husband about skipping class due to the severe weather warning, "Is that a good enough reason to stay home?" Today, I am feeling humbled and remorseful about my flip attitude. I do feel a sense of obligation to help my townmates, which I did via the Suffolk Red Cross website. But what I don't feel is a sense that my life has been, in any real way, altered by this event. And this is a serious disconnect between me and my natural environment. This is a sign of sickness, of acculturation gone bad.

It could have touched down on any one of the 81,000 people who live in Suffolk, and while the tornado was bumping its way through Driver, I was oblivious. Annoyed even, that the visibility was so bad on the highway. Coming home from class later that night, I passed the flattened toothpicks that were once sections of Driver. I saw helicopters, flood lights, cars tossed off into the ditch.

When the sky darkened and lightening shot down, I put on my raincoat and got a late'. I think this attitude and behavior are not in keeping with my desire to live a more conscious life. I feel as if I disrespected Mother Nature and deadened my own fear in order to maintain my regularly scheduled program. What I should have done was stay home, hug my son, and be glad we were safe.

Donations to Suffolk tornado victims can be made via the Suffolk Red Cross website,
at cash registers in Farm Fresh grocery stores, or at any Towne Bank location.

Winterton/Peck family is SAFE and WELL after tornado

We are blessed to report that our family and home is unharmed by the recent storm, which hit well north of us. Thank you to all the friends and family who have been checking on us!

Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?

I read the United Nations Daily Summary regularly. It's all the same: dying women, men killing one another, starving children, dirty water, death, disease, suffering, and a bunch of official people saying that we need to sustain efforts to stop all of the aforementioned horrors.

When are we, as a race of human beings, going to GET IT that killing each other does not solve problems? When are we going to get it that there are limited resources on our planet and growth models simply cannot work in closed systems? Not any time soon. There has never been a time in recorded human history when we have not been at war with one another. We are a primitive, violent species. But, in our defense, we are also very young.

When I see gas prices rising, I am hopeful. When I see water resources stretched so thin that Big Business has to sit up and take notice, I am very excited. Not because I am eager for The Crash, but because I am eager for what comes after. For whatever reason, humans like to deal with things when they are emergent. So bring on the emergencies- fast and hard and thick- and maybe then we'll be able to do something simple, like not kill one another.

Spring Freak Out?

When I think Spring, I want to think bunnies, butterflies, and babies. But what is going through my head is more like blllarrrrghghghghg. It's not just me. Really.

No less than FIVE friends shared with me that they are feeling particularly stressed, stretched, cranky, overdrawn, or otherwise exceedingly bitchy today. And even more strange is that all FIVE of these buds mentioned planning for next year and balancing mom needs with family needs as their primary cranky zones. I heard the term "breaking point" at least four times. Why today, of all days, are so many of my peers feeling stretched too thin?

Maybe reaching a breaking isn't such a bad idea. A breaking point could also be a break through point. Perhaps Spring Fever isn't a urge to clean or mate but an urge to evolve, to grow. Maybe it is the energy, the frustration, the stir-craziness necessary to improve areas where we struggle. After all, Spring is made possible by the many "broken" things of winter; dead leaves, dead insects, fecund and rotting compost. Death is good fertilizer. So it is with open, if annoyed, arms that I welcome my Spring Fever. It will, as it did last time, fertilize another great year.

But in the mean time, don't ask me for a snack.

Jodi Winterton

Welcome to my friend and one time sister-in-law, Jodi Winterton, who has joined Blogger.

Mail order chicks

We just got our day-old buff Cochin hatchlings in the mail today. Everyone is eating, drinking, and pooping so I think their journey went ok.

They are SO CUTE. I want to SQUEEZE THEIR LITTLE HEADS.

How do chickens go from being these cute little balls of fluff to being big fat hens who'd just as soon pluck your eye out as lay an egg?

A watched timer never beeps

We use the kitchen timer a lot. The kitchen timer is our Ultimate Diplomat, instantly resolving conflicts over timed events and limited resources like: computer time, homework time, recorder practice, etc. Just set the timer, I say, and all your parenting worries will disappear!

We had gotten to using it so much that I bought a second one to carry around instead of using just the one on my oven. Garbiel (7) had some questions about this new timer, which he asked while looking suspiciously at it ticking down his wait for the computer.

Gabriel: Mommy, is this timer the same as the kitchen timer?
Mommy: What do you mean?
Gabriel: Does it work the same way?
Mommy: Yes. It counts down from the number you put in. For example, if you put in '30'---
Gabriel: Excuse me, but I know how it works. Does it work the same?
Mommy: I don't know what you mean.
Gabriel: Are the seconds, you know, the same as the kitchen timer?
Mommy: Yes, they are the same.
Gabriel: Are you sure? These seconds feel really long, Mommy.

Scientific research vs. anecdotal evidence

With so many ads on TV for various drugs and so many "new" findings being reported in the media, I understand why a growing community of people are distrustful of scientific research. There is, however, a raging difference between corporate sponsored research, academic research, and anecdotal evidence.

Corporate sponsored research is of questionable validity. Research that does not use the scientific method is also of questionable validity, so the "grass roots" data movement is, I think, not really helpful. At the very least, data presented to me has to pay homage to the scientific method instead of saying "I am anecdotal! Listen to me!" I think a rudimentary understanding of research methods and statistics is required to understand the scope and quality of research, no matter the type.

A big complaint is that "They" (the scientific community) always change their minds, their results. The idea that the scientific establishment should find The Right Answer and then never change it's mind is ridiculous! New discoveries are made all the time and these new bits of information need to be fit into the ones we already have, somehow. Should we all still live on a flat world, just because the masses are uncomfortable with the rate of discovery academia is capable of? We live in a complex world with hundreds of "right" answers, millions of variables, and billions of individual people who interact with those answers and variables. Information is non-linear, non-simple, and constantly in flux. I don't understand why the research community is penalized for readily admitting this.

The good research is peer-reviewed, publicly funded, and transparent with their results. Few people access this type of research or understand the rigorous values vetting required. I find that most people's opinions about peer reviewed research are based on what is seen in the media rather than what is going on in the academic journals. For example, researchers must disclose all their funding sources. Here is a sample sponsored research disclosure policy. But the research we see reported in the media is research that large companies pay to have done, not true academic research, and disclosure policies do not apply.

Because many people are intimidated by statistics or find research methods boring (or just never graduate High School), most folks cannot spot good research when they see it. So they gravitate to "research" that is written in a way they can understand: anecdotal, or filtered through the media machine, or based on advertisements, etc. Very very very few people read the raw research articles or know where to look to find a sponsored research disclosure statement. And fresh academic research is where the truth (or it's most current incarnation) is to be found.

The scientific community finds commissioned research atrocious. The media, however, pick it up and publish it all the time, probably because the same companies that own the media own the corporations that fund the so-called research. There are valid reasons not to trust corporate sponsored research, peer reviewed or not. And even more valid reasons not to trust the media that report such "findings."

The academic community, throughout history, has been a tool. Sometimes for corrupt governments or organizations. But often for the resistance to such governments, too. Real scientific literature has a commitment to the truth, to the data, to the process; not to the outcome. Research that has an outcome agenda is, well, it's really shitty research. Don't dis the tool, dis its immoral use! Check out source texts for yourself- don't take my word for it.

Click here to search good quality, peer-reviewed, academic articles

A journey to Ireland

Various planets have aligned, money has been squirreled away in jars, grandparents and spouses have agreed to watch children, and I am going to Ireland with my fellow introverted traveling friend, Rain. We are documenting our plans and the trip on a blog, A Journey of Her Own

Eugene Davis of Suffolk Virginia

We get calls for Eugene Davis. About one call a week, sometimes two. I tell everyone the same thing. We don't know Mr. Davis. We are not related to Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis has never lived here or been associated with this number. About 6 months ago, the woman on the other end of the phone said, "But I just saw him yesterday, and he gave me this phone number!" After that call, I started getting chatty with the Callers-for-Eugene-Davis and collected some information.

Turns out Mr. Davis has financial issues that involve creditors. Mr. Davis is alive and kicking right here in the Suffolk, VA area and is purposefully giving out my phone number as his own in order to avoid collection calls. My most recent call was for an appointment confirmation. This time, I got the name of the facility. I have written a letter to Mr. Davis and sent it care of the facility, asking him to stop giving out our number.

Irresponsible behavior such as this necessitates a legal system, a punishment system, etc. etc. etc. Now my tax dollars go to protecting me from the Eugene Davises of the world. What if we raised people to internalize personal responsibility instead?