Training Log Archive: barb

Still below G but need to really start watching it.

Dave leaves tomorrow morning for a 4-week vacation with his family. The kids start making their own lunches tonight. One idea I have is to go to work early each day so they have to get themselves up, dressed, fed and to the bus. And I can get home earlier in the afternoon but still have put in some hours at work.

I went to a neighborhood organizing planning meeting last night and agreed to lead an effort to pull together survey questions for the neighborhood. There was a lot of interest in making gardening an initial focus: find sunny spots and see if people would be open to allowing neighbors to "farm" them if they weren't up for it themselves. Another attendee (Polly) is interested in aging in place organizing: having people over 60 form a network to help each other continue to live in their own homes. Rob talked about mapping skills in the neighborhood. Jude is interested in involving low-income youth. I'm interested in alternate economies. But geez, how much time do I really want to put into all this? This morning I got email from a city councilor interested in meeting with me.

Our friend Jamie may put solar hot water on/in our building. Sounds like it will cost about $10k for both units. Jamie is one of Dave's ice-climbing buddies, and a (usually high-end) contractor, and the person we watched the election returns with.

I decided to put self-watering planters on top of the garage and ordered them yesterday.

Dave ordered some netting for building the movable fence to keep the chickens out of the garden.

Very cold out! We seem to be having several solid weeks of near or below freezing lows and highs in the 40s. Today was cold and windy, and felt very much in the 30s. I biked into Boston for a meeting.

Tonight I made yogurt from 2 gallons of milk. It's the first time I've made it on my own; the other time our gardener friend Daniel McPhee showed us how to make it. I heated up the milk to 185 degrees F, then cooled it to 130 F and inoculated it with store-bought yogurt containing live cultures. It's staying warm now in a water bath.

Event: MoboGoGlobo! 2009
 

I got David to go around Fresh Pond with me. He jogged part of the way, and sometimes wanted to stop and rest, but I told him to at least walk. Then we went out for breakfast at IHOP.

lashan hara (sp?)

I'm still at the heart-pounding freaking out stage but at least I have some style issues to think about and work on.
crawl: stretch, twist, hand entry position
backstroke: hand out and in position, bend elbow and snap

mispunched on cell phone O but it was a blast. One of the faster 40 minutes of my life.

I dreamed about Sarah Palin. We were sharing an order of french fries, also with a third person. Sarah was sleepy at the end of the meal and I encouraged her to go upstairs in the hotel and take a nap.

Lisa D (who was the director of the kids' preschool) came to our seed sharing party last weekend. She has 3 kids: a son who is an engineer designing ("evil") drone planes used in the middle east, a daughter who is an artist, and her son Luke who is a writer and produces pieces for periodicals. I always enjoy hearing about his latest writing assignment. His most recently published article is about a crazy expedition to follow the route of a bull elephant on a mysterious super-long journey the elephant makes from time to time. Lisa told us details about the adventure that could not make it into the story, such as the somewhat inadequate planning. A bad sign was when Luke got a call a couple hours before he had to leave for the airport "reminding" him that he should bring his own food. They had a lot of trouble with the camels, like when they ran away, into a lake, and wouldn't come out. Another time, the ornery camels bucked off the water containers and broke them, which is the reason they ended up with used (not well cleaned) fuel and chemical containers.

Anyway, the story he's just been working on is about Todd Palin! Now I have this ambulance-chasing kind of reaction to any Palin story - I totally sucked up all the details during the election. I have a pretty major imposter's syndrome feeling often in my professional life, and it was therefore interesting to me to learn about this person who somehow through a number of twists of fate, ended up in her position, VP candidate. Which she wasn't imho qualified for, at all. And her perfect aplomb! Fascinating.

Well, Luke was not too keen on doing a Palin story at first, but took it on. I had recently read the Sports Illustrated story about Todd & his partner doing the big snowmobile race. Todd took Luke out on snowmobiles, and Luke spent a bunch of time with Todd and Todd's partner. Well, I guess we'll read all about it soon. It was interesting to hear Lisa's reports of Luke's time with the Palins. Todd sounds like a great dad/husband - he has been doing a lot of the managing-the-family work, obviously. As to a few other tidbits, you can ask me offline for details. :-)

Anyway, I think that's why I dreamed about Sarah.

Picture of Luke - click on the picture with the fire.

to school in the morning to get the bike I left last night

A couple photos of the fine Concord chickens that inspired us to order some ourselves. Ours won't be quite so beautiful. But they'll be solid layers, of gentle disposition, and hardy.

In the evening David and I went to Mass College of Art to check out a showcase of student work in the mixed media program. David seemed into it; he wasn't agitating to leave, even through some very out-there performances. Like the Vibration Sensation, where the lights were turned out and there was deep sound pulsing so strong that I felt it in my chest and wondered if my heartbeat was aligning to it. He took time to experience each piece in the walk-around part.

On the way home he was giving me a hard time, saying I didn't really want him to go to Mass Art; I wanted him to go to a hard core college, didn't I? didn't I? Like MIT. I was offended. Of course I want you to go where you want to go, I protested. How can you think that?

C • RE: Mass Art 5

I got this off the web but I can't find where I got it, so I'm doing a bad thing and not referencing it. Anyway, as I read it, I thought it might be inspiring for parents dealing with teenage sons.

Many roosters will go through a period at about five or six months old where they suddenly become more aggressive. This is because they are reaching sexual maturity, and they suddenly have new hormones racing through their bodies. They settle down to normal after a few months, though. One thing that has worked for me in the past when dealing with a cranky rooster is to carefully pick him up and carry him around with me while I do some "chicken chores." For example, I will hold him while I refill the feeder or check for eggs and so forth. Carry him around, holding him firmly but without hurting him at all. He may struggle a bit at first, but then he realizes he is in no danger and that you are in control.

The idea is to place yourself at the top of the pecking order without engaging in "chicken" behaviors like fighting or stamping at him or kicking. If you kick him or stamp at him, not only is it mean, but he will interpret that as a challenge: you are suddenly "fightable." If you behave in a way his instincts can tell him to react to like kicking or stamping, you might always have some problems with aggression from him. On the other hand, a rooster is not geared to react aggressively to being carried around comfortably but firmly in a non-threatening way. He will realize that you are a creature at the top of the pecking order, but one that it does no good to challenge.

C • So I have this image of you... 4

Work. To school for the monologue night. Each student learned about an immigrant and wrote, memorized and performed a monologue from that person's point of view.

Went jogging just before 6, to drop off a neighborhood newsletter to our most distant subscriber, and then to the Y. At the end, ran into Andy who lives on our block and used to be my boss' boss at Mlnm. He said he was sorry they didn't make it to the seed exchange and said he didn't have much sunny space to grow vegetables but that maybe there was a 4 by 4 foot area where he could put pots. I encouraged him to go for it. Maybe I can foist a few seedlings on him at some point. I also told him we are getting chickens.

6 laps.
Neighbor Brad was there; I shared his lap.
In the locker room after, I encountered Marsha (Max & Emma's mom).
Rather a social morning!
Weighed myself. Need to start paying attention so I don't get above the G.