Raising a Renegade

A week ago I read about an amazing idea on my favorite blog, Sweet Juniper. I then did a little research and decided to do it right here in lil ole Kalamazoo. I posted the blog entry on my Facebook page and received a lot of positive feedback and organized a seed bomb party for today.
Apparently, back in the day (like the 1970's), folks used to pack plastic easter eggs and holiday ornaments full of seeds and compost and throw them into abandoned lots and yards. They called themselves Guerrilla Gardeners. Today's versions of seedbombs seem to include far less plastic but the idea remains the same. There is a ton of information out there about the best way to do this but the one I enjoyed watching the best was this kooky Brit who seems to be at the "cutting edge" (so says Chad Boarman) of modern-day guerrilla garden-fare. Yes, despite what you might assume based on his hair, Richard Reynolds is, in fact, modern-day. The video is only 3 minutes long and worth it as I quickly fell in love with him and his grubby hands and Member's-Only jacket.

I began collecting seeds last week. I bought a few in bulk at our little local garden store and also started gathering up all the bits of seeds I had leftover from the years. I had a ton of sunflower seeds from the past decade. Who knows if they will sprout but this seemed like the perfect project in which to take the gamble.

I spent this morning calling around to all the craft stores in town as well as the big box home improvement stores but no luck. No one carries dry clay powder, apparently. I went back to Sweet Juniper's idea about using kitty litter. I was turned off by this originally because I have a strong aversive to touching anything cat-related but I decided that I needed to get over this--- for the sake of Green Things!
I bought the cheapest box of kitty litter I could find. Who knew that there was ENTIRE aisle at Target dedicated to such a product? As it turns out, not too many of the initial excitement carried folks over here on a gray Monday afternoon. It was me and the kids and our friend Matt. We worked diligently with 1 part seeds, 1 part compost and 5 parts kitty litter. The kids did a great job of making little balls closely resembling chocolate donut holes. Tommy only had to taste the mixture twice to decide he didn't want to eat it.

After we made a ton of donut hole seed bombs, we "delivered" a few. Luna isn't the best at being stealth so we had quite a few conversations about why we had to be quiet and whether or not what we were doing was legal and/or right. I think she is well on her way to being a force to be reckoned within the world of social activism. The girl has some VERY clear ideas about what is right and wrong.

Here are a few photos of my kids committing their first act of civil disobedience. Go to hell, Mr. Waner.

Hot Breakfast-- Served Daily... Somewhere

This morning Suzy Homemaker (me) made the family oatmeal. I made the real kind that you have to get up a little bit early for and measure out and all that. (Admittedly, not a complex recipe but ANYTHING is complex for me before 9am--- I am NOT a morning person). I set out four colorful bowls. I scooped each person the appropriate serving size (biggest for me). I crumbled the correct amount of brown sugar on top, according to age and height. Then I topped each bowl with the tiniest bit of milk-- for flavor and to cool it down.

I served the bowls to the kids; they began eating heartily. Then I started working on my tea. I hustled around and put a ton of white sugar in my cup and the perfect amount of milk. Ummm.... then the milk curdled in my tea.

I looked at the kids' half-eaten bowls of oatmeal. I called Papa over for consultation. Yep. He dumped his immediately. I nonchalantly (yeah, right) took the kids' bowls away and tried my best to salvage the non-contaminated part of the oatmeal. I placed in in a new bowl and topped it with fresh milk from the unopended one in the fridge. Things started to get blurry. Seriously. I was so low on sugar. I only have about 15 minutes from when I first stand up to when I need food in my system and we were WAY outside that window. Of course, the caffeine headache was screaming at me too and here I needed to start a completely new kettle of water. Eventually, I sat down with my salvaged bowl of oatmeal. We ate it. We all seem OK.

The moral of the story: Thank goodness for my addiction to Lyons tea, for without it, I would have continued serving my kids spoiled milk and then who the hell knows what would have happened!

Adult Ed

Education is lost on the young.

Here is sit trying to fill out paperwork to get an unemployment deferment for the student loans I still owe listening to Studs Terkel's Hard Times radio program on the Great Depression and thinking about how much I didn't learn back then. There are so many emotions contained in that very long run-on sentence.

I am thinking about these idiots from the Tea Party and wondering if they have ever met someone like me. I am sure they would think that a stay-at-home mother of two kids who has had her kids on Medicaid and has received WIC benefits must just be a loser. I am thinking that if we didn't have insurance and one of our kids got really sick, we would never be able to get out of debt. As it is, our deductible for our current insurance policy is $3000 so we would be hit pretty hard by anything other than a regular trip to the doctor's office. We pay $400/month out of pocket for our current plan--- apparently, we make too much to get Medicaid now that I receive unemployment benefits and my insurance coverage was cut off. We work so hard. We have everything we need. We really do. We are happy and I am not complaining. I do wonder who the hell these people are and what bubble they live in. In the past year 3 of my parents' 4 children have been unemployed and the 4th went to Colombia for a job! I want to spit in the faces of those ignorant Tea Party fuckers. That would prove to them that I am, in fact, not a loser at all. Ha!

I am thinking that I wasted so much time in college when I should have been educating myself by actually reading Studs Terkel. He came to MSU and James Madison students had a private audience with him and I might now even have gone. I was high as a kite at Noam Chomsky's talk with 15 other students from JMC. I was too young to know how important these people were and didn't care about history. DIDN'T CARE ABOUT HISTORY! I thought history was boring. Here I sit listening to stories recorded in the 1970's about the Depression. Here I am watching history repeat itself in this fucking country and feeling helpless and ignorant. I wrote about my recent obsession with old M*A*S*H episodes. God dammit if we aren't repeating that history over and over again. Let's send a bunch of young people across the world to get killed and maimed (inside and out) and why again? Why?

So, I married a guy with a passion for history (and a degree in it, too). Every so often I hear these pieces on NPR or read a novel about a time in our history I am completely ignorant to. We have these great talks about the books I was supposed to read in college that covered these topics and I start my education all over again every day. Today, I put The Grapes of Wrath on hold at the library because of what I just heard.

I am just kicking myself because I feel like I had some AMAZING opportunities for knowledge at James Madison, I really did. A short list of people who came to MSU and/or James Madison while I was there: Studs Terkel, Angela Davis, Sistah Souljah, Noam Chomsky, Tim O'Brien, various members of the Black Panther Party. Alas, I was 17 and can't feel too badly. College is wasted on the young. At least, this young one who is not so young anymore but is still paying loans for the education which she didn't receive all because of her lust of Oberon or the beach or road trips or sleeping in or silly boys. Of course, I married one of those silly boys I skipped classes with while drinking Oberon and sleeping in and taking road trips. That makes it all worth it.

History will repeat itself. Our children will most likely do some of the stupid things we did. God help me.