Now Norma Knits

Stash Giveaway For A Good Cause

Hi friends. Here I am again. Lots of totally badass stuff has been happening! I opened a new business.

More accurately, I changed the name and structure and focus of my former business. But still.

We went solar!

 

And MORE!

This Sunday, the Fitter Knitters -- (a relay team composed of me and four of my New England and New York State knitting and blog friends) -- will be running the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon. I know! Can you even believe it? We have team shirts and everything! Ours are sapphire, and you can order your own if you want, in whatever color you want. We specifically designed them to be generic enough that any fitter knitter can get one if desired, and we can use them for various events -- not just tied to this one race.

The company was great to deal with, so I am happy to recommend them. They didn't give me anything (except great service) to say so.

BONUS:  If you ask, they will put your name above "Will Run For Yarn" on the back. Somewhere kicking around on my iPhone or in Facebook or somewherrrrre, there is a selfie of me wearing my shirt, but damned if I can find it.

But I don't want you to get too distracted by all of that, because back to the title of this post: 

It's a HUGE YARN GIVEAWAY!!!

One of the members of our team, Carol, is doing some fundraising tied to our marathon relay. And to help to sweeten the pot, she is having a stash giveaway.

She and her daughter are raising money for Cookies For Kids' Cancer <------ That link takes you to her donation page.

Here are the rules of the giveaway:

1. Each $10 donation gives you one chance to win. For example, $50 gets 5 chances to win, etc.

2. To be entered in the drawing the requisite number of times per your $10 donations, email your receipt to [email protected]

3. Donations to be credited in the drawing through end of Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 2014. 

4. Drawing on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.

Here are the things you could possibly win: (photos of the yarn follow, but not necessarily in the order of the things listed here)

Rowan All Seasons Cotton (8), color 191

Rowan Wool Cotton: 3 skeins color 956 (chocolate) and 2 skeins #958 (blue)

Debbie Bliss Pure Silk (2), color 27012

Sirdar Baby Bamboo (4), color 138

Black Bunny Fibers (1), color Blue x2 bulky 100% blue-faced Leicester

Black Bunny Fibers (1), color Blue Spruce  bulky 100% Falkland wool

Black Bunny Fibers (1), color Tardy Sage  sock 70% merino/30% silk

Socks that Rock (1), color Tanzanite  medium weight

Classic Elite Fresco (4), color 5328

Plucky Knitter (2) Primo Worsted

 

Now please go and be generous, donate to a good cause, and hope to win some really great yarn!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worm Farming

Well, greetings from the Winter Wasteland. As I'm writing this, it sounds like the house is going to fall down at any moment. The weather app on my phone says the winds are blowing at 16 miles per hour, but that just can't be right. Perhaps the app is dyslexic and it's really 61. The app also says it is 36F, and that's also whacked. My face nearly froze off when I stepped outside to let Mr. Jefferies do his business, which was rather a fruitless exercise. He plastered his ears back and looked at me like, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" then did one of the quickest about-faces I've ever seen, and bolted back in.

Spring is still a long way off for us. But even though the ground is frozen solid, I still managed, today, to get some dirt under my fingernails. That's just something like tonic for a housebound gardener. 

How did I do it? I did some maintenance of my worm farm. A local friend recently asked me to take some pictures of my worm farm for her. I decided that you all might like to see and hear about the worm farm, too.

It turns out it was a good thing I did, because when I investigated the situation, I found that a couple of the trays were too wet and compacted and needed to be aerated and have some dry material added. 

Avert your eyes if you are squeamish about worms or dirt. But wait, I bet you want to see what's in that bowl, right? Here it is.

Totally looks like a stir-fry; am I right?

That's a bunch of fruit and vegetable scraps, peelings, cuttings, pieces of houseplant trimmings, eggshells. It's all been previously frozen, because freezing or cooking the stuff helps it to break down faster and makes it easier for the worms to process. 

I tend to accumulate a LOT of these materials. It could take up a lot of freezer space, but around here (see paragraph one), it's not hard to freeze them. Just stick them in a dish and put them out on the front (or back) porch or whatever. Here's the next batch that I put out this afternoon.

I suppose if someone came to our front door and saw a pan of garbage sitting there, they might develop certain opinions about us. I solve that problem by not bothering to shovel the front walk. If they can make it to our front door, probably the vegetable shavings are the least of their concern.

So anyway, I feed my worms a dish of stuff like that about every two or three days. That is considered "green" food -- nitrogenous stuff -- for the little squigglers.

Little squigglers cannot live on "green" food alone. They also need "brown" food -- carbonaceous -- in about equal amounts. This can consist of shredded paper, coir (coconut fiber), shredded cardboard -- that sort of thing. I have bought some coir bricks, and they are fab, but we also tend to accumulate tons of paper and cardboard -- much more than my poor worms can process. I might have to get a second farm for next year. Heh. (Shhh.)

Here's what I did not know when I started this project: Worms have gizzards! Isn't that interesting? You probably already knew that, because you are smart. But I didn't know that.

So they need to have little bits of rock as a part of their environment. They also need enzymes and other little microorganism to help them with their digestion. So when I started this last fall, I put in some earth from outside into my trays. In my starter kit, which was one of these, there was a package of pumice for this purpose. I have run out of that, and can't for the life of me find the same kind of pumice anywhere. I've used it all up (directions say put in a half cup per tray), and I've tried to find pumice of the same coarseness, and so far just can't. I ordered some online, and it was supposed to be "coarse," but it is fine dust that is meant for sanding furniture. Ridic. So next summer I will make sure to collect some sand and tiny pebbles from outside, enough to take me (and more importantly, my worms) through the winter.

But on to the fun stuff! The worm poop!

Here are a bunch of pics of what I did with my Friday afternoon. When I open the top lid, this is what I see:

When I take off the top layer of damp newspaper, this is what I see:

See how happy the worms look?

Do not even say, like SOME people (well, ONE person) I live with, "How do you know the worms are HAPPY?" (delivered with an eye-roll)

Do not even go there. I will snap your head off. Of COURSE they are happy. I can tell they are happy because they are happily doing worm things. Cripes. 

See what's in there? Some moistened, broken-up fiber egg boxes, some veggie cuttings, some paper, some coffee grounds. Still a lot of work to be done to make that into compost.

The next tier looks like this:

Looking pretty good. There are some more happy worms. That dark brown stuff is some wonderful worm poo that has dropped through the mesh of the top layer, onto the final layer of moistened newspaper that is left on the top of the tray before the next tray is put on top of it. This layer is more processed than the layer that is on top of it, but less processed than the layer beneath it. See how this is going now?

The next layer down, though, was not looking so good: 

This photo was taken AFTER I had used my hands, and then the plastic spaghetti tool, to loosen it up and aerate it a bit. I did a lot more loosening and aerating, because it was a cold, wet, compacted, mess. It wasn't as bad as it might have been, I reckon, because it did not smell bad. But it would be very difficult for my little critters to move around in and do their jobs. So I did the aeration and used my hands to break apart some of that solid wet newspaper. You are not getting all squeamish on me, are you? If so, I will be losing some respect for you; I'm sorry.

Anyway, I gave it a good stirring with my hands, and added a good amount of dry shredded paper.

I hope that does the trick.

The bottom layer looked pretty darn good. Almost soil. In fact, if it were anything like spring, I would have added this to one of my garden beds.

Beautiful.

Below that is the drain tray, where excess moisture goes, and can be collected. We call that worm tea. I added it to some water and watered my houseplants. 

Mmm, pretty. 

After I was all done stirring and aerating and adding food and bedding, I layered all the trays back the way they should be, replaced the top layer of newspaper, and gave it a spritz of water.


All in all, it was a healthy hive, so to speak. 

Wait, I bet I know what you're going to ask: Where do I keep this? I have an unheated room that is sort of a porch, or a mudroom, or an anteroom to the dining room. The worm farm has worked beautifully there. For most of the year, I did not have to heat it. It's unheated, but well insulated. But when we hit the very-deep-freezing temps, I had to put a space heater in there, set at low. The idea is just to keep the temperature above 40F or so.

We used to collect compost scraps in big bowls and trudge up the snowbound hill all winter -- when we could manage. It was a smelly, unsightly mess on our counter a lot of the time, and a big pain. Now my worms compost for me indoors. 

Makes me happy. And the worms too. 

OMG, Typepad, the Spam Comments! And Lookie There, I Have Another 5K Under My Belt!

I know it's not Typepad's fault that actual people are being actually hired to go around and spam blog comments, and therefore they get past the Captcha, but JEBUS CRIMINY ON A CRACKER, it's getting me down. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP, TYPEPAD!!!

Sorry, I just had to vent.

Now on to more interesting topics.

Hey, look at this:

This is me and a friend on a yellow schoolbus. We were on our way to be dropped off at the start line for the Middlebury Turkey Trot 5K today.

This:

is where the bus stopped. The driver said, "I guess this is where the 5K starts," and silly people that we were, we ACTUALLY GOT OFF THE BUS.

I thought it had to be a cruel joke.

It was just filthy cold and gusty, with a wind chill of zero degrees F. And by F, I think you know what I mean, and it ain't necessarily Fahrenheit. 

Here are a few of us trespassing on a dog kennel property sort of huddled behind a fence, waiting for three more buses full of unsuspecting victims to come and wait for the race that was supposed to happen at 12, but was late starting. We all had numb digits and ears and noses by the time the thing actually started.

Pro tip: When the course description suggests something to the effect of, "Classic Vermont Terrain," be afraid. Be very afraid. It could mean being bused out for what seems like wayyyy more than 3-something miles on a hilly dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I'm just saying.

But anyway. Eventually we got going, and I'm here to tell about it, and hey, dognabbit, I've run another 5K! In just under three months, I've run three 5Ks. And coincidentally in my entire life, I have run three 5Ks.

Can you believe it? I can't.

Apart from the hills and the freezing, it was a good race. The best part of this one was the sweet beagle and old yellow lab at one property at the top of a long hill who were watching the 400ish racers go by, standing back a few feet from the road, gently wagging their tails as if to sweetly cheer us on. Actually, that was probably one of the Ten Best Things I Have Ever Seen. Ever. I so wanted to take their picture, but my iPhone was frozen -- or was that my fingers? -- and I could not manage to get a photo. I'm so very sad about that.

So here's the thing: I have gone and got a little bit of a crazy idea in my head. I'd like to run 12 5K races in 12 months. Looks like I'm already on my way to that actually happening. Wanna join me?

I haven't been able to find a December race that I can do yet, so I'm sort of on the lookout for one. I'm not going to be available for quite a lot of December, so I might just have to double up and run two in some future month.

Gratuitous Mr. Jefferies shot:

 

 

 

Now She Runs?

(This is a long one. You might want to go pee first, and get a cup of whatever it is you like to drink.)

So let's get this straight:  I am not a runner! 

And yet, somehow I have just completed my 2nd 5K since August 24. How the heck did that happen?!

Before the race on Saturday.

And after, posing with Amy (she's a knitter!), who I just met that day:

Much to my surprise, I had a not-embarrassing finish in each one. 

The trick is, I guess, if you are feeling great, you can do almost anything. 

After so many years of trying to be a runner, and giving up every time because of various aches, pains, injuries, I-HATE-TO-RUN-I-AM-NOT-A-RUNNER, whatever-whatever, this past summer I finally did something that I highly recommend to you if you have a history of Hating To Run the way I did:  I joined a running group and got some coaching. 

The gym that I love, Artemis Fitness in South Burlington, VT, started a summer running group, with the goal of training for either the 5K or the 10K run in the Green Mountain Athletic Association's Round Church Women's Run. They hired a wonderful coach, Kris Gleason, from Fleet Feet Burlington. Over time, a few more great coaches joined in, because our group had a variety of running levels and personal goals, and they helped us each in our own way. (AWESOME.)

I signed up for the Tuesday night running group, but "NUH-UH, NO WAY AM I GOING TO RUN THE ACTUAL RACE! I'm just mixing up my workout routine, thankyouverymuch!" 

And so I went to the first meeting, and that very first night, the coaching was worth its weight in gold. Life-changing, really. I'm not exaggerating one tiny bit. The dynamic warmups seriously changed my running life. 

So then we get to Thing No. 2: Shoes. That first night, and maybe the next one or two, I still had one of the many pairs of hundreds of dollars' worth of running shoes that I have bought over the years which were THE WRONG SHOES for me.

I had done my research, or so I thought. I had tried the minimalist shoes, thinking that was The Thing for me, but we might or might not all remember how that ended up. I'd tried all kinds of various neutral, highly cushioned shoes. Blech, blech, blech. Nothing worked for me. I-HATE-RUNNING-I'M-NOT-A-RUNNER.

So anyway, back to this summer and the running group. I finally listened to what people were saying and went to a proper running shoe store (not the mall variety), and got properly assessed and fitted, and contrary to all the crap I'd read on the internet and in magazines (you know the one), and having done self-assessments about my high arches, and etcetera and so forth, I was told that I needed a HIGH-STABILITY shoe. Well, damn. What a revelation. If I say "life-changing" again, will that be too repetitive? 

At this point, I need to back up. Now the numbering system in this post is going to get all out of whack, because BEFORE JOINING A RUNNING GROUP, here is what is even more important: As Kendra and Cate, the owners of my gym say, "People think they should run to get strong. But instead, you have to get strong in order to run."

Yes, yes, and yes. Say it with me: [chorus: life-changing!]. Strength training BEFORE running. Totally [chorus]

I celebrated my one-year anniversary with the gym by running our last 2.5 miles before the August race, in about 99 degrees F with my running group. We died from the heat, then went out for a celebratory dinner. Up to this point, we had never run a full 5K, or even that last 2.5 miles, without stopping. We had done run-walk intervals the entire time. Despite the training, I was unconvinced that I could run an entire 5K without stopping. I had had no proof that I could. 

One night, though, none of the other 5K-ers showed up, and I joined the 10K group. We run-walked 6 miles that night, and I didn't actually die. But it sort of felt like it. The gym is not far from K-Mart, so that was my landmark, and I will tell you, I was never so glad to see a K-Mart in my life. 

During the end-of-training-group celebratory dinner, I still believed in my head that I was not going to go to the race on that Saturday. I was going to just yes-yes everybody, and then crap out and simply not show up for the race, having some manufactured reason why not.

But instead, when Saturday morning came, I got up at nearly the crack of dawn so that I could eat, get ready, and drive the hour and a half to get to the race site by 7 a.m. After we had trained in high, high heat for the previous six weeks, it was ridiculously cold that morning, and I was not prepared with the proper clothing for that cold. Kris had an extra long-sleeve tech shirt in her car that she lent me to keep me from shivering too much before the race started. Still not convinced that I would make it through this thing, my only goal was to try to keep running for the whole thing. I did not believe I would be able to do that.  

I was able to make it to the halfway point without stopping. And a sometimes coach for the summer and a friend were running with me. At the turnaround point, there was a hill. I stopped to walk for a few seconds, and I lost ground from my friends. I tried hard to catch up to them again, but never could. I got exhausted, started to flag, and looked like I was going to start walking again. A wonderful stranger (a slightly older woman, but a more experienced runner) started talking to me, and she egged me on. She ran the rest of the race with me, and we made it! She encouraged me to kick it up for a strong finish in the last 50 yards or so. And damn. 

You can see the results here. In the overalls, look at #118, and in my age group (that would be 50-59) look at #14. For a confirmed NON-RUNNER, not too horrible at all! 

I was seriously holding back barfing on the guy who was cutting the chip off my shoe. And I do mean SERIOUSLY.HOLDING.BACK. I was retching, and thought, Ohmygod, this is going to be bad. But I didn't do it. MAYBETHEREISAGOD, I didn't throw up on him. My legs were shaky then, but I recovered fairly well:

But then, back to this past weekend. No problemo! No training, either, really, although I did run 5K last Tuesday at home. I did have that barfy feeling just after crossing the finish line, but no sea legs, and I had a reserve in me at the end. In retrospect, I now know that I could have run faster. But I ran just about at the same pace as last time, which was comfortable, and one of my goals in this thing is to run uninjured. I'm not out to prove anything major here.

The difference in this run was though the course was flat, it was somewhat difficult. We were running on loose gravel and/or wet grass for the first 2 miles, and then thank goodness, pavement for the last mile. If I were not in good overall condition, or if I had my old low-stability shoes, I could easily imagine a twisted ankle or knee or some such.

Amy and I ran together, and we kept each other going. We talked about knitting(!) and we were a great mini-team. For the bigger picture, I was a part of a small fundraising team that looked like this on race day:

Suzanne Somers and Richard Simmons

were valuable members of our team. Hee.

You can see the results of the race here, where you will see that I came in 283rd overall, and Amy was right behind me. Thanks so much to Kris G., who graciously invited me to join in the fun! I'm so glad I did. 

So now, I have mentioned the dietary changes I've made, and some people want details. It's quite simple, really: In an effort to determine what foods I might be allergic to, I am following an elimination diet.

Some ugly symptoms reared their ugly head like they did in late September 2011 and the coincidence was just too great. The timing was almost exactly at the same time of year (and thank GOODNESS for the blog, for being able to sleuth out the date), and the symptoms were exactly the same. I thought I was dying. And it turns out I almost was. Again. (Although I avoided a hospitalization this time.)

So I asked myself, "What is different about this time of year?!"

And I came up with the answer:

And my first reaction was:  PLEASE DON'T LET IT BE TOMATOES!!!! They are my favorite food in the whole wide world. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't let it be tomatoes. I want to DIE if I can't have tomatoes.

But hang on. 

I had thought I had leukemia or something.

So let's weigh this:

Possibly no more tomatoes   vs.   Leukemia

Or stroke. 

Or sudden death.

I'm pretty sure I can live with no more tomatoes.

But in any event, I got myself to a naturopathic physician, because let's face it -- no offense to all the doctors I adore -- but regular doctors are clueless. And the last time, once they ruled out that I had had a heart attack, they shrugged their collective shoulders and said, "Carry on. We don't know what it was. It may just be one of those things we'll never know."  And the cardiologist said, "I don't know what you had, but I know it wasn't your ticker." 

And then it was all like, "Call us the next time you almost die."

Helpful. 

And then last year I had a bad tomato crop, so I didn't eat as many. But this year it was a banner year again. And so there I was, right back where I was two years ago. And when I thought back, there were other episodes in my life that were very similar, one of which is when the doctors put me on a beta blocker.

I think the writing is on the wall here. 

So anyway. I am currently on what is known as an elimination diet. Many people seem to misunderstand me when I say that -- they think it is some sort of a cleanse, as in, I'm eliminating toxins from my body. Well, I am, for sure. But the term "elimination diet" has a different meaning. 

And that's what I've been doing for about a month now, and WHAT.A.DIFFERENCE. Can I hear another LIFE-CHANGING?!

All of my inflammation is GONE GONE GONE.  You know that chronic tendinitis? GONE. The painful, sticky fascia? Smooth and elastic again. The muscles that were hard and painful like rigor mortis? Soft and pliable again. It's like a frickin' miracle, I tell ya. [chorus! chorus!]

So much so that I can honestly say I ALMOST DON'T miss my favorite foods in the whole wide world, and I almost don't see a reason to go the next step in this regimen, which is to reintroduce the foods one at a time to see what effect each has on me. I'm doing so well, I really don't see any reason not to continue indefinitely on this path. 

In a nutshell, I am simply not consuming the following:

- nightshade vegetables (I believe this is the biggest culprit)

- dairy (this is a close second)

- wheat (this is tied for second) and most other grains except quinoa, gluten-free oats, and brown rice

- soy (not sure this is a factor, because I never consumed much soy except when I was a vegan and then I pretty much hated it, so it's dead to me anyway.)

- eggs (this one might or might not be an issue)

- chocolate (I think this is a problem for me. Kill me now -- except. Thinking I'm dying of leukemia? Or no chocolate. Yeah. I can live with it.)

- coffee (I actually wake UP when I get out of bed now, rather than needing an hour to sip my coffee before I begin to feel and act like a person. I do still consume some caffeine, in the form of green tea)

- corn

And I think there are more things on the verboten list, but I choose to focus on the "include" list:

- meats, poultry, fish (organic, grass fed, and uncured as much as possible)

- all vegetables except nightshades

- all fruits

- most nuts

- legumes 

- gluten-free oats, quinoa, rice

I feel 99% better. I would say 100, but I might have one more food that should be eliminated, because I have a new symptom:  a bothersome itchy scalp and a couple itchy, irritated places on my skin. I'm suspecting either coconut or a certain kind of nuts (perhaps cashews). My intention was to eliminate nuts and coconut from my diet starting today, but despite my best intentions, I ate both of those things. Maybe tomorrow.

Losing the nuts on top of everything else makes getting through the day a bit harder for me. Meal planning is not difficult as long as I have plenty of food in the house and as long as I'm home. Going out is a bit tricky, particularly since a) chefs LIE (they do!) and b) even at my healthiest fallback places to eat, just when I think, "I can eat that!" I read the ingredients and it has red pepper flakes in it, or paprika all over it. I definitely have reactions to those two things. So yeah. Pretty sure it's the nightshades. 

But still. I don't have leukemia, and I just rocked my second 5K.

I got this. 

And a parting shot to the regular M.D.s: I WISH YOU'D GET A FRICKIN' CLUE about this stuff. 

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” 
― Hippocrates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gale Zucker and Rhinebeck Style!

Gale just gave me a scare.  She posted a video on my Facebook timeline, with the following words:

So, here are 320 or so folks posing for me but only one, ONE, revealed her belly button. Guess whoooooooo? oh Norrrrmaaaaaa.

I was afraid to look. But Gale did her usual makin'-me-look-so-good thang. Nothing to worry about at all. I was posing with the wonderful upcycled blanket I bought from the amazing Crispina ffrench at New York Sheep & Wool Festival 2012, and isn't it amazing how nicely color-coordinated my whole getup is with the blankie?  I'd say it was coincidence, but maybe not, since I always tend to buy Autumn. And I'm also wearing my one-and-only lace knit (the one-and-only that I've done myself, that is -- so many wonderful people have knitted me beautiful lace -- Cookie, Marianne, Cassandra, to name a few), the Flower Basket Shawl that I made from the natural-dyed sock yarn I bought at my very first visit to Rhinebeck.

So many memories, so much meaning here. 

So, I will let the video speak for itself. Said belly button reveal, not at all like Miley Cyrus even one teeny bit, is at about 2:31 in the video. 

 

Don't you love the way it's put together? It makes me wanna dance!

I recognize SO.MANY of the people in the photos, and I can't wait to be there again this weekend to see all the wonderful folks that have been such an important part of my life. 

See ya there!

The New King Arthur Flour Store/Cafe/Baking School -- Yeah, WOW, Man!

I'm long overdue for a Pee Place Post; am I right?  

So how fortunate for you! An early release from my work in Central Vermont today gave me all the excuse I needed to go and visit the new (still under construction, really) King Arthur Flour store.

I took some photos of the gorgeous place, of course starting in the most important room:  The pee place!

And, my friends, it is stunning!

Anyone who knows me well knows that this was the first and last place I went on my visit there. 

Next, I went to the cafe to get a sticky bun and cafe au lait, which I enjoyed at one of their lovely tables. You can see I wasn't kidding when I said it's still under construction. That yellow tape is not to indicate that it's a crime scene, but a construction site. 

Highly decadent, and worth every calorie, even if I gained a pound.

And then I went to the store. Baker's mecca! Even though I really held myself back on account of the fact that I just can't and don't bake that much anymore, I still managed to fill these two bags and spent enough to qualify for a free bag of self-rising flour.

I took the bags' photo there because I wanted to show you the beautiful stone wall along the outdoor table space.

The post-and-beam buildings are stately and strong, and reminiscent of Vermont maple sugar houses.

Lots of fabulous (local, I'm presuming) stone and wood throughout.

And look here: 

Copper downspouts.

Definitely worth a visit, even if you aren't a baker.

 

MwahaHAHAHA, OMG, *cough* *heave* HAHAHAHAHA!

To quote my nephew:  "So apparently they forgot to include 'did you plug it in' on the troubleshooting checklist."

Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Result Reportedly A Mistake Caused By Loose Cable

Cookie Monster Explains OWS

Yes, there always going to be rich and poor. But we used to live in country where rich owned factory and make 30 times what factory worker make. Now we live in country where rich make money by lying about value of derivative bonds and make 3000 times what factory worker would make if factories hadn't all moved to China.

Capitalism great system. We won Cold War because people behind Iron Curtain look over wall, and see how much more plentiful and delicious cookies are in West, and how we have choice of different bakeries, not just state-owned one. It great system. It got us out of Depression, won WWII, built middle class, built country's infrastructure from highways to Hoover Dam to Oreo factory to electrifying rural South. It system that reward hard work and fair play, and everyone do fair share and everyone benefit. Rich get richer, poor get richer, everyone happy. It great system.

Then after Reagan, Republicans decide to make number one priority destroying that system. Now we have system where richest Americans ones who find ways to game system -- your friends on Wall Street -- and poorest Americans ones who thought working hard would get them American dream, when in fact it get them pink slip when job outsourced to 10-year-old in Mumbai slum. And corporations have more influence over government than people (or monsters).

It not about rich people having more money. It about how they got money. It about how they take opportunity away from rest of us, for sake of having more money. It how they willing to take risks that destroy economy -- knowing full well that what could and would happen -- putting millions out of work, while creating nothing of value, and all the while crowing that they John Galt, creating wealth for everyone.

That what the soul-searching about. When Liberals run country for 30 years following New Deal, American economy double in size, and wages double along with it. That fair. When Conservatives run country for 30 years following Reagan, American economy double again, and wages stay flat. What happen to our share of money? All of it go to richest 1%. That not "there always going to be rich people". That unfair system. That why we upset. That what Occupy Sesame Street about.

See the original comment here.

(There's also a great Cookie Monster follow up, in which he says "In theory, this country a democracy, where everyone who share resources also have say in how resources used. In practice, ordinary monster have very little say, and super-rich basically do whatever they want and make government do whatever they want.")

 

Shared from:  http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/10/guy_called_cookie_monster_offe.php

 

Vermont Rocks

The tiny island of my birth* is known for a few things -- you know, besides being the island of my birth. Ahem.

I've mentioned this before, but in case you are just catching up, or if you want some review, you can read some interesting little factoids here.

Of relevance to this post, Isle La Motte is home to some quarries that are no longer in operation. 

Anyway, some time ago I was given a handful of rocks by someone who used to work in one of the quarries.

They weren't very impressive-looking things. They might easily have been crushed up and used for road fill.

But you know how I love my local rocks, and specifically how I love pendants made with local rocks and earthy artisan pieces, and I really wanted a piece of that black marble. ("Black marble" is how it was marketed for many years. That is now known to be geologically inaccurate -- it is really limestone.)

So I've been holding onto these rocks with the idea that someday I'd maybe have some jewelry made, but I never got around to it. I was driving around with them in the back seat of my car for ages.

Not long ago, I ran into the wife of the man who gave them to me. Her husband had passed away in the last few months, and she wondered if I'd done anything with the rocks yet. Well, this was the impetus I needed to stop procrastinating. 

I took my pieces of road fill in to a local jeweler who I knew was interested in, and sensitive to, local materials, Global Pathways Jewelers (which, by the way, has an Etsy shop). I knew they were interested and sensitive to local stones, because one of my other favorite pieces is a stunning pendant in Vermont red jasper that was made by them:

So we worked on getting a few of the stones cut and polished...

...and then we designed the metalwork together.

Since I have brown eyes, and wear a lot of brown clothing, I wanted to bring some brown into the pieces. I suggested to them that I'd either like to add a touch of brown stone of some sort, or, we both stated this simultaneously, "maybe we could add some copper to the pieces." So copper it was. 

This is what we ended up with.

I picked them up last week and I've hardly had them off, except to sleep and shower, ever since. In fact, if you look closely, you will see that I am wearing the earrings in the photo in my last post.

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(The large oval cabochon in the box above remains unset for the moment.) 

Another Vermont Rocks story:

On Veterans Day, a friend sent me this link to a piece about Vermont marble. 

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*OK, I wasn't actually born there. I was born in a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, which is more truthful, but much less romantic-sounding. But my parents lived there when I was born, and I lived there for the first seven years of my life. In any event, I feel very attached to the place.