Giddly

Hey Steph,

I’ve just returned from Seattle! While I’m sure I have plenty of intelligent things to express about the Pacific Northwest, my mind is made sluggish by a long day of travel begun at 4:30 this morning and ending at 8:15 tonight. Instead of Seattle, I’d like to write a little bit about minutiae (yes, you’ve already stolen this word in this post, but I got hit with a beautiful bit of minutiae tonight and I have to share).

Pretty sweet rainy-day song mix found here.

                Travelling home is taxing on me, as it is for a lot of people. It is a return to my normal life, which is fantastic but always seems to pale in comparison of the excitement of friends, family, and a new city. So, it usually takes me a few days to acclimate back to life and let go of anxiety. But as I hopped off the train in my hometown, I was greeted with a welcome home sign from nature: good, solid rain. At first, the stresses of security lines and long-coming returned baggage weighed too heavy to immediately delight in this rain—this rain, that so accurately gave me a scene from my Texas childhood. I climbed in the car, tired and ready to let my mind rest. NPR was set on the car radio, and the quiet plucks of jazz guitar set a soundtrack to my ride home. And then I got all giddly.

Giddly: a portmanteau of giggly and giddy; an uncontrolled release of joy

                I’ve found that I get giddly when I’m reminded in the midst of heavy thoughts how blessed I am to be on this earth. In the window scene before me, the rain painted strokes of white and red light emitting from the cars ahead. The dying light of day, be-coated in stormy clouds seemed to dance away their final minutes. (Parenthetical statement: I hate that Stephenie Meyer single-handedly destroyed the beauty of the word twilight.) As the rain confidently came down on my window shield, adding syncopation to the cool, ponderous jazz music, I felt as if I had been given a confectionary treat—a piece of life, wrapped up and personalized for me. I know montage scenes in movies are often cliché and kitschy, but they are often my favorite part. When done right a la Up, the montage points out the profundity in the quiet snippets of life. I think that this recognition of profundity in the simple is why I get giddly. I might have true worries filling my mind and heart with concern, but a bit of gratitude for the little stuff can do a lot to help me to not take myself too seriously.

                As I lay on my bed writing this with the open window bringing in chilly air to my feet, tinkling tin-roof raindrops to my ears, and, oddly enough, warm, spicy curry to my olfactories, the only thing missing from this bonbon de vie is the ability to share this with my loved ones. I’ve written a whole song about the desire to share these moments of minutiae, so it’s a perennial problem of mine. While you and many other dear friends are impossibly far away to experience this with me, here’s a song that does quite a decent job in bringing a summer thunderstorm to you: 

Wherever you are, I hope you feel at home too.

Cheers,

Amanda Kae

What are the sights, smells, sounds, tastes of home for you? What things remind you of the profundity of life?

Tulips

Hey Amanda,

Indecision: n. starting  to write a blog post about Oil drilling in Ecuador, followed by the Parables of Jesus, and concluding with facts about tulips.

Guess what? It's Tulip ordering season. I'm sure you had no idea that that was even a thing, but it is. It's a big deal. So for no other reason than plants are awesome, and I didn't want to write about anything too serious today:

Fascinating Facts about Tulips

1. There was a Tulip Bubble

Modern Dutch tulip fields (Photo Credit)

Although Tulips are actually native to the mountains of Afganistan, they're a pretty big deal in Holland. Such a big deal that speculation on tulip bulbs was so extreme during the 1630's that it almost crippled the Dutch economy. Tulipomania was so bad that single bulbs were selling for more than ten times the annual earning of a skilled laborer.

2. The Rembrandt Virus

Semper Augustus. Unfortunately, this variety is extinct now. 

The striped tulips immortalized by Dutch painters of the golden age were actually not bred that way. They were colored tulips infected by a the Tulip Breaking Virus similar to the Tobacco Mosaic Virus which caused white streaks to develop on their petals. (Also, the striped Semper Augustus shown above was the most expensive bulb sold during tulipomania)

3. The Tulip Standard

Although European countries often refer to a "Golden Age" where they were at the pinnacle of influence and power, the Ottoman Empire refers to its moment of glory as the "Tulip Era"

4. There are no true blue or black tulips but you can find pretty much any other color

Some get close though. My favorite tulip is Black Parrot

Although I'm also pretty partial to the White Parrot too.. 

Just in case you're wondering, Parrot is a class of feathery petalled tulips. There are 15 classes. 

5. Tulips can't grow in Florida
Tulips need dry, hot summers and significantly long winters to live. So if you live in the South, you're out of luck unless your willing to buy bulbs every year and then store them in your fridge for a couple of months before you plant them.

Have fun in Seattle,
Steph

Whoa, Tuesday!

Steph,
  I head to Seattle tomorrow, which should be awesome, but that also means I've had my head down plowing through work before I go. I was going to post a super awesome pic of a dog award I made for work, but my phone died. Sad! I'll add it tomorrow. Look forward to next week when I turn into Pocahontas and extoll the power of nature--northwest-style.

Love,

Amanda

Aviation

Hey Amanda,

Remember that time it was Friday and I completely forgot to post! Shoot. I'm sorry.

So here's the short story of the Wright Brothers,

1901- the Wright Brothers arrive in one of the windiest spots in the nation to test a glider. And it goes abysmally. So bad in fact that Orville writes his sister saying "Not in a thousand years will man ever take flight"

1903--the Wright Brothers make the first motorized flight on Earth.

So chin up. Perseverance wins.

Aviation is seriously awesome. So its 1903, the longest flight so far lasts less than two minutes.
By 1915, Tiny Broadwick demonstrates to the US military how to parachute out of a plane. Crazy. In 1928, at the age of 17 Elinor Smith becomes the only person to successful fly under all four of New York's bridges. And do you know why Amelia Earhart was famous? First woman to solo across the Atlantic and first person to solo the Pacific. She went missing in her attempt to circumnavigate the globe by plane.

Georgia Broadwick went by Tiny as she was 5'0' and weighed 85 lbs

And because this is a blog called Sisionary, we've got to have a shout out to Katharine Wright (the aforementioned sister to Wilbur and Orville Wright).  About whom Wilbur said,"If ever the world thinks of us in connection with aviation, it must remember our sister."

Katharine Wright knew how to rock a mortarboard

Adventure is out there,

Steph

Awful August

Hey Steph,
  August is the worst month. Most places it is really hot. This is not a negative for me, but for a lot people it is. It is the last month of summer, which means you spend half of it saddened by summer's impending departure--just like the last day of visiting home: you're still with your family but you might as well be on a plane because sadness ruins the entire day. (I will support with free editing and non-processed food for life the person that invents the transporter.)

Beam me up, Stephy!

In the transient life of a single-person in a college town, August means transferring your home base to another apartment and often living out of your car and on a friend's couch in between contracts. If the world wasn't already screaming loud enough at you that you don't belong, August rears its cruel head, reminding you that no one else is making and going through substantial life choices with you like where to live. And if you are not moving, most likely your roommates are, so the family-like unit you've created for the last year is rooted up, leaving a vacated, sterile space for a living room. That name no long seems fitting as you come in from work to your lonely space; Dying room fits better. And then, when you think your home that has turned into just a place you sleep and dwell takes another hit: Your moving roommate turns off the internet in the middle of a Skype chat with your family (a desperate attempt at restoring peace and love to your life). Now even the connection to the outside world via the interwebs is gone. You are all by yourself in the sucky month of August.

August: a month you drag yourself through to get to September; a period of uncertainty, change, and homelessness

August also means other changes like new roommates. My neighbor friend just got a new roommate. Upon her arrival, the roommate said that she can't stand having any dishes in the sink ever. Now, I'm all for cleanliness, and I work hard to keep the common areas of my house clean and liveable, but it kind of bugs me when people move in and make statements like that. It seems like a fairly arrogant viewpoint. "Look, I can't stand a single dish out of place. So please make sure to keep me happy and keep it spotless." When did your definition of clean become gospel truth? I consider myself a clean person, but my definition of clean isn't one of constant, immediate cleanliness. Generally, I make dinner, eat the food while it is hot, and then clean my dishes, but I had a roommate who would come into the kitchen during that gap, begrudgingly and huffingly put away the dishes and then walk by me with a look that said, "I can't believe I have to put up with you." Dirty dishes can be annoying and frustrating for sure, but I feel like my super clean roommates, more often than the others, were more irritable and less patient with others. Just as they have to deal with a few dirty dishes, I have to deal with judgmental looks and shame for not being perfectly clean from them. So, if you like things clean, have some patience. Instead of entering an apartment and laying down the law about dirty dishes, just wait and see what happens. Have some patience, and if you have a roommate that routinely leaves a sink full of dishes over night, kindly ask her to clean up her stuff. Problems will probably ensue as your two personality traits try create new habits and beliefs on cleanliness, but remember your opinion might not be the only correct way.

So, Steph, have I griped enough today? I'm sorry. I had a bunch of options to talk about, but I couldn't move through the uncertainty created by August. But I do fall asleep remembering that I have a bed to live in, my electricity is working, I have a job, and a cell phone to call home anytime I want.

Cheers,

Amanda

What's your least favorite month? Hints on liking August?

Ethical Meat Eating

Hey Amanda,

Basically I dabble with the idea of being a vegetarian every six months. I always change my mind. However, as this particular freeze-thaw cycle has progressed, I have learned some super interesting things about our bodies, and animals. This is in no way a criticism of any way you choose to feed yourself and your family be it vegan, vegetarian, paleo, low-carb, high-carb, or "....as long as it's followed by dessert." Since I've met a lot of people like me (vegetarian dabblers unite!) I figured I'd pass on what I've learned, considered, found interesting. And whatever you do, more power to you.

1. Animals are smart.

Mother Nature didn't make no fools. You can rest assured that you are smarter than the meat you're eating. However, intelligence between animals has nothing to do with whether we eat them or not. Pigs are more intelligent than horses. Octopodes* are smarter than dolphins. And while lobsters are taxonomically on par with beetles--they are smart enough that the vast majority of them can out-maneuver lobster traps.

Your dog can fetch, but I can play hide and seek

Just embrace that particular meat taboos are strictly cultural, not moral. There's nothing innately wrong about eating cat more than there is anything innately right about eating tuna.

Personally, animal intelligence was never motivation enough to become vegetarian for me. A multitude of papers have been written about cellular intelligence, and judging from the fact that plants are often more genetically complex than animals (sweet potatoes have twice as many chromosomes as you), you could probably prove plant intelligence if they moved fast enough.  See first sentence about Mother Nature.

2. Whoa B12

It's a little bit of a miracle that we're alive. We rely heavily on our food to keep us functioning and being a vegetarian is difficult. Not because you have to give up tasty bacon, but because you have to be smart about it. I admit it. I'm too lazy.

Did you know that all naturally-occurring sources of B12 that you can reliably absorb come from animal products? If you're not taking supplements, the generally highly nutritious vegetarian diet could mask B12 depletion until you have symptoms with your nervous system. Crap. But like I said, it's the difference of remembering to pop a Flinstones every couple of days or have a few bowls of Cap'n Crunch, so not a huge deal. Just an example of our physiological reliance on our food. If you do decide to eat meat you might consider giving thanks to your next meal for all the amazing things your meat is doing for your body that you don't have to think about.

Spirulina, does have B12 in it but in a form that's very difficult for your intestines to extract

3. Free-Range, Grain-fed, Grain-finished, All Natural---these labels are worthless

Feedlots and factory farms can apply all of the above to their packaging with zero modification from the norm. If you're worried about how ethically your meat has been raised (which you should probably consider), grass-fed and/or pasture-raised are good starting points. However these labels aren't regulated, so caveat emptor.  You could also buy your meat from local farms, a co-op, or Whole Foods (which has an animal ethics rating system). But if you lack the funds for those options, here's "The Frugal Guide to Ethical Meat."

Chicken and cows have been bred to withstand the horrid conditions they are too frequently raised in, so buying more fragile kinds of meat ensures that they have been treated somewhat well. For instance, sheep have a really poor resistance to worms so they can't be overcrowded without dying--this equals a loss of profit for the rancher. Thus sheep ranchers are incentivised to not overcrowd their flocks. If you've never seen lamb or mutton at your local grocery store, fear not, Mexican meat markets or carnecerias are pretty universal, usually sell sheep (and sometimes goat, score!) and are economically priced. You might want to be forearmed with the pertinent Spanish translations for the particular type of meat your are looking for.

In addition to sheep and goats, waterfowl also can't survive factory farms, so if you can find them, duck and goose are good options. However, they tend to be pricey.

4. Organic Dairy...is iffy.

Not like harmful iffy. Just yucky. If you stop by the hippie partition of the refrigerated section (which, kind of awesomely, exist in all of the stores in my town), you'll notice that all (or almost all) of the milk labelled organic is also labelled "UHT" or "Ultra-High Temperature Pasteurized" or simply "Ultra-pasteurized." I'm not getting into the raw vs. pasteurized milk debate. I'm just saying that regular milk is pasteurized and has a refrigerated shelf life of a 1-2 weeks. UHT milk on the other hand has an unrefrigerated shelf life of 6-9 months.

Plus, sometimes antibiotics are good. If you've ever known a woman that had mastitis, you know that infections are painful and it might be more humane to treat the cow. I'm lucky and there's a local farm that delivers milk to the normal grocery store. Good luck with meeting your dairy ethics, it can be a little tricky.

5. You can use more of the animal than you think

If you want to be respectful of the concept that something died so that you could live, it gets a little harder to throw away the neck and giblets from that whole bird you just defrosted. You could be really zen about this and get into eating feet and offal, and I applaud you if you are one of those people. However, if you have a normal aversion to that kind of thing: broth and rendered fat are your best friends.

Every time I get cook chicken I throw the bones, skin, and gristle-y, fatty pieces into a collection bag in my freezer along with carrot, onion, bell pepper, and celery trimmings. When the bags full I make stock. Beef, lamb, and pork bones are great for simmering with bean dishes as is, or you could make mixed stock if you don't have enough of each to make separate batches.  Homemade stock/broth is the bomb, and more tasty than any can or box you can buy.

And save the fat. All the white fat that rises to the top of your leftovers is rendered and has a pretty good shelf life if you keep it covered. Schmaltz (chicken fat) is particularly good for eggs. And why use butter to lube your cornbread pan if you've got bacon grease. Saturated fat is delicious and may not even be bad for you. I keep mine in different ramekins for each type.

ramekin: n. the little ceramic bowls they serve creme brulee or au jus in. Owning one is a sure sign that you have watched too much Food Network at one point in your life.

Have fun storming the castle,
Stephanie

P.S. I'll get to aviation next week ;)

*Yep, octopodes, the plural of octopus.