neckroll
for those of you who have never watched birds for hours on end, you may not appreciate the shooting, stiff pain i started accumulating in my neck from 4 daily hours of having my neck tilted upwards.
well, this week i snagged an old, stained sweater from the free market that was going to get trashed and cut off one of the sleeves, stuffing it with fabric and sewing long strips on either side. i rest the pillow-sleeve along my neck and run the strips under my arms to tie on my back (see picture below), and then i also have a strip i tie in the front to take the strain off my shoulders. it is AMAZING, and now rather than painful birdwatching, it's restful and leisurely. unfortunately this picture dan took doesn't capture the sweet artwork i drew on the back.


















orgasmic birth
this is my most recently enjoyed documentary. i don't think many people realize my strong feelings about childbirth. i've known for a long time that i don't want to give birth in a hospital. orgasmic birth is about encouraging people to have home births, and illuminating how for normal, healthy people giving birth at home is less risky than giving birth at a hospital- and infinitely more enjoyable.
i was about to jump into no less than 3 paragraphs about my feelings concerning c-sections, epidurals, pain, etc... but instead you can ask me if you're interested.
in short, this movie reminded me that all my fear and anxiety about childbirth is related to hospitals, and after watching it i got totally stoked about childbirth. seriously; i can't wait (i mean, i can, and i will. but i look forward to it- i'll have candles and open windows and tea and snacks, and i'll roll around with people i love and splash in warm water, and just totally revel in having my little baby.)

pets
i couldn't help myself, and i have a jug of ~25 caterpillars that have been happily living in my kitchen for the past week. i don't think i've watched the caterpillar -->butterfly transformation in day-by-day display since maybe 2nd grade, and it's time i witness it again!

getting dirty
i enjoy giving myself permission to get dirty. i think adults are far too preoccupied with staying clean, especially when they have the option to take a shower soon afterwards anyway. it rained for days and days here, and on the first sunny day i hit the trails running. they were totally swamped, as i knew they would be, and i really enjoyed running straight through every giant puddle and getting totally soaked and muddy.

the great plant!
today was planting day at garden 579. i got my hands all dirty (they still are, in fact) planting tons of stuff. it was neat to be with a group of really knowledgeable people, working out a scheme. i ended up learning a fair amount. the garden's only a 5 minute walk from my house, and i like that i can go and garden any time i like.
i've also been working on organizing kids' art projects that'll be taking place for 3 weekends in june. we're going to transform the space into an "art garden", and i'm delighted with the ideas we have so far, which include a "living" teepee with vines and flowers climbing up the frame, and strips of fabric with kids' hopes and dreams written on them tied to the vines and along the teepee. pretty lovely, eh?
here's a shot of today's planting party, although it doesn't capture the garden at all. i'll include more pics of the garden once i have time to download them and send off the link (realistically, probably not until late june)

crash and smash
dan and i lovingly assigned these names to our meticulously realistic chimney swift decoys. during the problem-solving phase of fixing their faulty pole, they made a good number of nose dives to the ground that sent wings flying. there were many rehabilitation sessions requiring gorilla glue.

and they're working!! this week we had a breakthrough, as the swifts are starting to pair off and they began more intense interaction with the playbacks and decoys. i was beside myself with delight when they started repeatedly calling and circling and "diving-in". here's a photo from on top of the mariposa market in orillia, where we have a tower on the roof. i'm holding crash and smash, although they're a little difficult to see. maybe next week i'll post a link to some more photos.



oil pulling
i've started oil pulling after some discussion with jesse and reading up about it online. you basically just swish oil in your mouth for 20 minutes and then spit it out. i was pretty skeptical, but i had trouble finding anything written about it that didn't involve claims of wide-ranging health benefits and wild accolade. i'm tempted to write a lengthy synopsis of my findings, but if you're interested you can check out these links and then go off probing on your own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pulling
http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/oil_pulling.html

i figure: if it does work, awesome! if it doesn't, what's the harm in sucking on a little oil?

wood thrush
this week i found the hiking trails at trent, and once again i was off and running through the trees. i stopped in mid-bound when i heard a wood thrush calling back in the woods. their call is definitely one of my favorites and i closed my eyes, allowing the eerie vibrating notes to envelop me with a contented sigh.
i found a clip of their call for you if you're unfamiliar with them, although the experience of hearing it echo through the forest on a quiet spring or summer afternoon cannot be captured in an online sound bite.

mr. something something
this tortonto-nian band is so terrific. their music is dance-happy and complex and superb, but what pushes them over the top for me is that they have bikes up on stage hooked up to their amps. members from the audience come up and ride the bikes to literally power the show.
:) :) :)
here's a link to some of their songs on their webpage.
http://www.mrsomethingsomething.com/music/

efficiency
most of you are probably aware that i'm very keen on multi-tasking and productivity.

well, last week i went to the doctor for a raging kidney infection (i won't go into all the symptoms, but they were horrific).
i showed up at 11am and
did a urine sample,
met with the nurse,
met with the doctor,
went downstairs to the lab to drop off my urine,
went over to the ultrasound department to schedule a pelvic ultrasound,
and was out in the sun again by 11:30. !!
that, and it was all free with a flash of my health card.

wild-ness
this week i found jackson park in peterborough. i hadn't realized how anxious living in a city was making me until i went for a walk there. it's a good sized park, and when i saw beautiful natural chaos it was as if my heart did a snowbank-to-sauna splash. all of a sudden instead of walking i was running down trails that skirted through cedars alongside a racing brook and up into rocky forests. ahhhh. so much better. there's no stress for me like the stress of being without wild places. i feel like a trapped animal. that taste would've been good enough for one day, but then dan and i drove up to a new swift tower in bobcaygeon, and the whole ride was full of forests and rocks and rivers and lakes. dan was amused by my delight. it looked a lot like maine, and it was like a bear hug for my soul.

frisbee golf
i also found the sweet peterborough frisbee golf course this week. it's a lovely course, right down by the river. i don't have time to play it now, but i look forward to getting totally creamed when david visits in june.

cumbia
there was salsa in the kitchen, and now there's cumbia in the woods. david sent me a whole bunch of new latin music, and more than once in the past couple weeks i've been on trails in the woods when one of the tracks pops up on my ipod. without making a conscious decision my feet and hips start moving to it and BAM all of a sudden i'm wildly dancing down the trail, or throwing it down in a clearing. i can't explain what latin music does to me; i'm a marionette and it is my puppeteer. trail-dancing is quickly becoming my new favorite thing.

this painting


"nature girl" by heather gorham.

graduation!
today my beloved brother's graduating from the university of hawaii and i'm positively brimming with pride. i think i could only be more excited if i were there swooning from some abundantly floral lei. no high five or thumbs up;(and a killer hug) to you, kevin!

mending
i was stitching up holes in my socks and replacing a button on my pants when i decided that i'd like to start a mending workshop. i'm going to proposition yolanda (OPIRG's coordinator) about it. convenient, as i've been brainstorming ways to utilize the bags of fabric we have from clothes that were donated but aren't in good enough shape for the free market. i'd be happy to host it one morning a week, and OPIRG'll provide refreshments, material, needles, thread, etc. i think i'll choose articles/topics for discussion each week, and we can sit around mending and getting all hot and mentally bothered. doesn't that sound divine? i think so.

mammala
my mother, my progenitor, my viviparous host. thanks to this marvelous lady, my embryo and the resulting organism developed without a single observable flaw...

all jokes aside, i've written this acrostic poem to magnify a few of her traits that deserve ovation:

Mentor: she teaches innumerable quantifiable things, but also educates in more nuanced ways- helping equip people to teach themselves.
Analytical: constantly seeking answers, and never satisfied with stagnancy, she's always learning and exploring.
Resolute:not afraid of defeat (but not likely to surrender easily), she embraces a challenge.
Generous: she is benevolently self-sacrificing.
Affectionate: showers of kisses and hugs and love abound from her, and she judiciously gives praise without carelessness.
Resourceful: she approaches situations with creativity and innovation, skeptical of prescribed solutions.
Equable: her responses are calm and logical, considering the perspectives of all involved- and never volatile or hostile.
Tenacious: she plows through the tough stuff with spunk and grace, not self-pity or belly-aching.

and she's humble, to boot! jealous yet?
i LOVE my momma!

worm castings
i sifted the worm poop from my worms and compost for the first time, and the joy of topping off my tomato plants and spring greens with my garbage-cum-black gold was otherworldly.

field equipment
i began field work yesterday (well, hypothetically. it's been dumping rain so last night we just went and had tea at joe's, and today i called dan at 5am to let him know we were a no-go.), and i got my hands on my brand-new, sparkling equipment. it includes insanely life-like swift decoys (hand-hacked, black painted cardboard probably would have sufficed, but joe wanted them to be hand-carved and realistically painted. ah well, his money.) and a pole for displaying them next to the towers, a generator, dictophones, stopwatches, chimney swift song cds, hobo loggers (measure temp, humidity, etc. inside the towers), a bazillion cd players and speakers (joe was a little neurotic about back-ups), and a rental car.

as for the car, for some reason the company gave us a brand new one -presumably because they're not familiar with field work- that is not only unnervingly clean, but doesn't have a key! all i got was a little remote to open the doors. once inside, you step on the brake and press a "start" button. i anticipate that it'll create many more problems than it aims to solve.

contamination cups
i think these are great, but i guess bac-tea-ria's not for everyone. :) tamsin van essen makes cups that appear to be contaminated by different bacteria. for example, here's the cholera cup:




the university purge
as classes ended the kids all moved out abruptly, which was bittersweet. on one hand, there was a copious amount of free stuff for the taking. on the other hand, rowdy guys seem to enjoy catapulting perfectly good things off their balconies, sofas and chairs get left in the rain to ruin, and lots of the stuff goes unclaimed. so last week i took to the main student streets near my house with a notebook and camera, scribbling detailed notes of what things were in good shape and their addresses, and taking pictures of each item. then, i made a nice post on freecycle so people could go grab them. i got a number of sweet emails about that post, and for those of you in the states who are nearing the grand exodus, you can still get out there and do the same if you like.

clementine boxes
i keep finding these, and they're so handy!

"the weight of lies"

i've been singing the chorus to this song by the avett brothers all week:


the weight of lies will bring you down
and follow you to every town
cause nothing happens here that doesn't happen there


so when you run make sure you run
to something and not away from
cause lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere


chimney swifts

my beauties have been spotted in the skies, and field work with my assistant (i have an assistant! hah!) dan starts wednesday.


open windows
enough said. sleeping with the window open on cool rainy spring nights cannot be beat.


sleeping kids
speaking of sleep, i adore how heavily kids sleep. i creep (not that i need to) into phoebe's room at night to turn off her light, and her angelic mug doesn't even twitch.


green tea

i assume you're aware of green tea's greatness.
it seems well supported that green tea improves the immune system, infection, cardiovascular disease, cholesterol levels, arthritis, cancer, club feet, and ignorance. ok, not the last two.


i've been exploring non-imbibe uses for green tea.
i was skeptical of wild claims i read about using it as a conditioner, but they're true. i swish a little apple cider vinegar in a cup of green tea and rinse my hair with it, followed by a quick water rinse. it's magic! i've also been making my new favorite face wash by grinding up oats, raspberry green tea, and baking soda. i follow it with a splash of lime juice and rosewater.
god, doesn't my face sound tasty?


i've also decided i should probably buy a jumbo bag of green tea powder and start cooking with it.

cpr tricks
i read about a study this week that found the bee gee's song "stayin alive" has a beat that's almost exactly 100 beats/minute- the same rate the AHA recommends for CPR chest compressions. after 5 weeks (i don't really know why it took that long; i don't think of it as a particularly complex number) doctors at a med school in Illinois could hum along without the music and keep time while doing chest compressions. unfortunately this study didn't involve a less obnoxious song. i think my cpr skills would be sub-par if a highly annoying disco song was stuck in my head...