I have the mug!

I wonder what I'll be when I grow up? So hard to know....

People love all sorts of folksy shit that I don't necessarily have time 
for, because it's excessively repetitive to someone like me. I know coaches who base their entire careers on delivering these neat little quips in the form of cutesy quotations (usually ripped off from
someone way more famous), and I don't specifically have a problem with sayings, except that I've heard them all my life. Why, you say? 
I'm so glad you asked! 

Oh, that's right! I have the fucking mug! Every damn day, people.

My dad programmed us (some would use the nicer word "trained"), like we were an elite military unit, and, look at that! Fast forward some 40 years, and here we are: leaders, all. So it's not that I personally find you distasteful, though if you try to cram too much of your crap down my throat, I will get angry (trust on that), it's just that I really don't need your fucking input at this particular point in time, because if I do, I will ask the questions I want to to get the answers I need. How do I know? I have the mug. 

Look! Here's a plaque my dad sent me with a quote on it.

p.s. - Yes, that's me in the morning, and yes, I am aware that shot is a bit overexposed (but that's not the point of that picture), and no, I am not wearing any makeup, because that's me having my morning cup of coffee (and no, I don't need makeup to drinking a fucking cup of coffee at home, alone), and yes, I am 44, and no, I have never had plastic surgery or used Botox, because (and this is important), I am a fucking working class New York girl. Get it together, ho. You're pissing me right the fuck off, and if you don't like it, then wear sunblock, bitch.

Old Houses

National headquarters for a fraternity.

You know by now that I love really old houses, especially the kind 
of atmospheric ones from the historic revolutionary region called 
"The Hudson Valley", and so it remains still to this day. 

I have a deep, abiding love for architecture that began when I grew up near some of the oldest houses in America, here in the tri-state area. They look good in every season, too. 

Small shed, big house.

Large and in charge, for a house.

The corner turret, and other domicile delights.

Stone walls, and other revolutionary structures.

Beautiful portico and side balconies with rocking chairs.

Peaked roofs and wide open porches made for afternoon breezes.

Big old trees, planted when the house was new.

 

Nature: Life and Death

Fallen bird's nest

Mushroom cap in grass

Mummified squirrel

Mushroom cap in pine needles

Baby bird fallen from nest

The Vintage Tee

Still looks fresh!

Back when I was a kid, "vintage" did not apply to fashion trends like denim jeans and old prom dresses. "Retro" was not yet the Bettie Page hipster living in Williamsburg off daddy's dime, working a cheap, low-level design job. Antiques were things our parents bought from old barns upstate, found in dusty attics, or buried in basements with years of wear and tear on them that had to be lovingly and patiently removed. Same thing applied to my clothes. They were mostly hand-me-downs from my older brothers, because my parents bought me clothes a few times a year: right before the new school year started in fall, at Christmas time, and for a December child like me, it was also for my birthday. If I grew a shoe size during the interim, we may have made a special trip to Sears or Buster Brown's, a chain that made Mary Jane's and Oxfords for kids; not exactly "hip" by any means, but such were the times. I did not wear pricey Gloria Vanderbilt jeans in the 80s that became a huge trend almost overnight, because my parents argued that it was a complete waste of time and money to buy something we would outgrow so quickly, and they were right. 

Can't touch this!

So now, when I go through lean times (like the phase I'm currently in), I know what exactly to do, and that does not include tightening the belt on a pair of $500 jeans. Thrift becomes a habit, just like it was for my Depression-Era grandparents with their survival skills, as does the art of searching for what you need among the things you already have. I read an absurd tag line for an article some weeks back that said mending and tailoring old clothes is now back in style in England. Ha! When I was forced through economy to spend some time last year with a family member, I did so with my typical aplomb, along with my inherent sense of style. 

Lo and behold, there among my mom's old stuff in a musty, dark, drippy basement (which I cleaned for her, under her supervision, for a few days straight, wearing plastic gloves as I sorted through the mildewed cardboard and rotting wood), was a box of our old clothes from childhood, and then, like a flash of sunny daylight in the dank depths, there it was: the first ever MTV birthday t-shirt from 1982, celebrating their first year on air (and yes, I did see the first very first MTV video, The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star" with my brother after school one afternoon, in total awe) that our dad, who worked in the city for Time Warner Cable, brought home, along with promotional mugs, trade show tote bags, and the latest movie posters. And guess what? You can't buy it anywhere, you fucking hipster.

Small Town: Spring

 

Trees explode into leafy green.

I've collected a bunch of shots from around town for awhile, culminating in a group of scenes that define what the classic, small town experience is in springtime, especially warm, wet, wild ones, like the kind we have here in the Hudson Valley. 

Enjoy the perfect summer weather we're having right now New Yorkers, (not too hot, not too cold, with lots of sun and puffy white clouds), before the real heat and humidity sets in. Have a great week.

Shoots spring up overnight.

Ivy begins creeping up the sides of buildings.

Wild berries burst out in profusion.

Gardens grow with abundance.

Food: Creamy Pasta

Penne and sausage and zucchini and cream. Oh, my!

We have a bounty of perfectly beautiful, succulent green squash from New Jersey pouring into the store with a rich profusion that screams "Cook with me!" Yeah!! I've waited months for this kind of produce. 

Sometimes I treat my kitchen and pantry items like an episode from the cooking show Chopped: What can I make from what I have on hand? It's actually really fun, without the intense on-camera pressure, berating, viciously competitive saboteurs, and the brutal, insanely quick time line.

A bowlful of pasta perfection!

I decided to combine the squash sitting so perkily and prettily on the refrigerator shelf with some leftover penne, pecorino romano, a little light cream, all natural sausage flavored with spices, sea salt, and natural flavorings, tossed into garlic and onion fried in coconut oil, all items I bought on sale and in season. Mmm, mmm, mmm!
Take a look for yourself, and see.

Welcome to summer, readers! Today is the first day.

Health News: Under Your Arm

I've known for years about the link between breast cancer and commerical anti-perspirants/deodorants, my introduction to it via the then-fringe "granola"  world, coming at me during art school, when I willingly elected to live in a house with some touchy-feely vegetarian types, who remain my friends to this day. Back then there were no harder core levels like the vegan, the gluten-free allergist, or the macrobiotic, because just being a vegetarian was weird enough, though my housemates did introduce me to levels like the "lacto ovo" vegetarians and "pescatarian"; those who eat dairy items, like eggs and cheese, and those who also integrate some fish into their diets. I grew accustomed to eating a lot of pasta with vegetable tomato sauce, brightened with hot sauce and Muenster cheese, to make up for the lack of animal protein in my diet. It didn't work for me, because I'm genetically an omnivore, but I learned some very useful items during my time with the Peta-supporting vegetarian crowd, namely that most of our cosmetics and toiletries are made with really unhealthy shit. I had no idea that toothpaste had sugar in it, until my friend told me companies added it so kids would get hooked on the taste to use more product, which is the exact opposite of a dentist's advice about avoiding sugary foods that promote tooth decay. Oh, the irony. My sensitive friend also left out the latest Peta pamphlet she picked up from the local hippie food store with a dramatic picture of the poor rabbit who developed pink eye while forced to submit to eye makeup testing; the only granola grocery store in Providence, RI at the time, with sparsely stocked shelves holding expensively priced items aimed at that "Trustarfarian" near you (a rich kid who wears really expensive hemp clothes, like the shit Gwenyth Paltrow posts on her Goop blog). Yeah, that type of rich kid: really annoying, but kinda right. Anywho, their focus also extended to cosmetic items. 
 

Irritated...by baking soda!

There was Dr. Bonner's soap in the bathroom, printed with his folksy End of the World scenarios about our collective scary future, which was used for hair, skin, and tub cleaning, along with the Moosewood cookbook in our vegetarian kitchen, all rigorously correct items for any self-respecting do-gooder going to a college so expensive, that the few middle-class kids I knew in my classes had parents who took out a second mortgage to gamble on their RISD kids future successes. Yeah, like that kind of pressure. So I went with it, and folded it into my current lexicon. Years later, at a recording studio in Denver, I worked with a guy who lost his Mom suddenly, with no real answers about her death at the time our employment histories overlapped, except for one finding from the doctor who performed the autopsy: an overdose to her system from Mercury poisoning. I never forgot his story, nor the fact that he completely refrained from any kind of under the arm treatment, except for the occasional use of those salt crystals you find in the hardest core hippy store. I can't go with that crystal thing, (it's just so friggin' hippy crazy), but I do supplement my health care routine with under arm baking soda, so effective at controlling bacteria, that there is no under arm funk AT ALL, but the stringent salt does cause a red, itchy reaction with me. So, it's back to expensive organic lavender roll-on, which I can't really afford, but I try to look at it this way: how can I afford not to? It'll last a lot longer than the cheap $.99 stuff now marked down for quick sale (thanks to those pesky ingredient baddies we know about), but you take a gamble on your future health and the risks involved by ignoring your doctor's sage advice. Huh...death, or food stamps? For now, I know what my choice is, but I really hate being in this position. Take it on as an issue, folks, before you really have no choice. à bientôt!

http://www.mamavation.com/2014/06/armpit-cleanse-reduce-breast-cancer-risk.html

The DNA of Our XYZ: RISD by Design

Natural instincts, and other magical gifts.

Being a RISD grad (pronounced RIZZ-DEE) is like dropping the Harvard bomb into casual conversation at a cocktail party: the music stops with a sudden scratch of a needle across a record (you remember those, right?), like the person opposite you has just spied spinach caught conspicuously between your front teeth, as is now deciding whether or not to tell you the truth about your appearance based on your relatively new, and brief, acquittance. How to proceed? Alarm, dread, surprise, or maybe a kind of slow-creeping dawn of recognition widens their eyes, and those are just the people who know the truth about who we are.

I do not (nor have I ever) resemble a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, just like I don't resemble the stereotypical, movie version of an artiste, or the square-framed, shy, passive-aggressive, arrogant, know-it-all book designer, like your average, working class, boogie-down New Yawker, or your typically self-righteous Catholic girl, though I am, in fact, all of those things: an artist, a book designer, a native New Yorker, a person of faith, and that's just scratching the surface. Like my ethnicity, the story of who I am is not the Dummy Guide to the Self or a CliffNotes version of reality, though I am far from pretentiously complex, nor purposely difficult to pin down, like some pompous hipster living high on the hog in Williamsburg (look it up).

Nature, and also, design.

Through time, I found myself to be exactly who I think I am, and that my experience at RISD was exactly what it was supposed to be: hard, brutally hard, and not something I would ever contemplate doing again, because my purpose was (and is) to go out in the world to share my work and my vision as a leader in the world, and as a woman of the world. It was a "one of a kind" type of thing, just like my time as a student was.

I now see my time there as something akin to the cinematic version of the combined Harry Potter books: a magical sort of place that doesn't actively seek out students (nor should they, because RISD has the lowest acceptance rate in the world), but simply draws to it the beautiful and gifted like another type of magnet, that Sorting Hat of Potter fame. As much as I didn't "fit" in (and who would, at such an extraordinary place?!), I found over time that I am exactly what they wait for at RISD: a type of intellect that can cross barriers, jumping lightly over divides to make previously unseen connections, building almost impossibly beautiful bridges seemingly out of thin air.

Human animals, and other topics of interest.

Because, just like one of my professors admitted, we are this era's Leonardo da Vinci's (and every era's ever after), as we always have been, and we always will be: not easy, not trendy, not "alternative" for the sake of a short term sale, but rather to become enduring, lasting, classic, innovative, a type of forever that's also human and achievable. It's kinda like being the stuff that books are made of: once bound and sewn by hand, then printed on paper by a press with movable type, and now rendered into a computer programming language for the Digital Age. Yeah, like that.  Come, see for yourself.  http://issuu.com/risd/docs/risdxyz_spring2014_final_single_pag#

Revolutions in the making, and other brilliant feats of typesetting.

The Blooming Onion

A wild onion, right out of the ground.

I've loved wandering around in the woods as long as I can remember. There are so many cool things to discover: ponds filled with tadpoles swimming furiously in every direction, bugs zipping by with their shiny, iridescent wings glinting in the sunlight; all manner of plants, trees, flowers, grasses and shrubs of too many varieties to count.

In recent years, I've returned to the landscape of my youth in the Hudson Valley to discover anew it's now "hip" culinary status (like the much more lauded and touristy Napa Valley, for which I am also glad of our relative obscurity), as an area with an incredible bounty of wild edibles, abundant in their profusion. Such is the case with the rich river valleys that serve as the traditional birthing grounds of our species, like the ancient river delta of the Nile and the holy Ganges in India.

My lovely specimen, now in bloom.

Here I find a native type of grape, there dandelion greens, once disparaged as the poor fodder of immigrants (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/06/nature-edibles.html), now elevated to trendy, gourmet status as a health food, along with the many other types of onions, garlic, and greens you can pull straight from the ground, once the stems reach the right height. I've eaten food immediately after it's pulled from the dirt, wiped clean on my shirt, and there's nothing fresher or better in taste to compare it to: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/06/food-farming.html.

I pulled one such specimen from the ground several weeks ago, and I liked it so much, I put it in some water at home. Lo to me now, it budded indoors, at the exact same time as the varieties I see outdoors during my daily walks, noting changes and details to the landscape with kind, loving attention. I don't know if I yet have the temerity to cook with such a common "weed", which is what we considered native plant species many years ago, because they've been set up to be a far cry from the perfectly modified, factory-cultivated, "pretty" produce that's sold at grocery stores at a considerable markup, but I'm working up to it. Enjoy the fruits of your labor this week, my friends.

A red wild onion variety, also in bloom, outdoors.

The Yoga Mat

The yoga mat.

Every Monday, me and a group of retirees (I'm the youngest attendee so far, surprisingly) do an entire hour of basic yoga FOR FREE. That's right, free, at our local library. I'm pleasantly surprised by the exercise, but also grateful. As a middle-aged athlete who is also currently un-insured, I have to be very careful. At the height of my brief dojo career at two big name gyms in the city, I often rolled BJJ and sparred MMA with 20-somethings who practiced various forms of these extreme full contact supports without any health insurance whatsoever. When I asked them what they did when they got injured, they often shrugged their shoulders, and said "Just wait, I guess. And heal."

And so it happened to me, except I was still covered under the policy I was paying for. I found out that, in addition to the two pins put in place years ago after a knee surgery that was the result of an injury I got when walking my dog, I tore my ACL and also had a medial meniscus tear, along with bone, ligament, and tendon bruising. Well, at least I didn't fracture anything this time, I guess.

The yoga mat and me.

I decided not to have expensive (and somewhat risky) ACL surgery, because I did not have the ability to undergo a lengthy PT process while I struggled to keep my head above water in these uncertain times (and because no one can do the work I do with my own hands), so since then, I've had the dubious challenge of staying physically fit while enduring fits of employment coupled with lingering fears about homelessness and starvation. Quite the potent cocktail.

Last year I found a cut rate Tai Chi class that met outdoors, and then went up gradually in price as the teacher felt she could get away with. Understandable, but also, not my thing. I get bored with Tai Chi quickly, and I still have a lot of energy. So, it's now yoga, the tai chi form I learned last year, with a lot of walking thrown in for good measure, and right now, it's exactly what I need. Many of the stretches we do in class are the same ones we do in martial arts during the warm up and cool down phases, anyway.

Plus, I've met a great group of people who I share a lot in common with, something that's always occurred between me and the generation above Baby Boomers; blessings all to me. Stay fit, America. We need our strength, now more than ever. Have a great week.

Thunder and Clouds

Tendrils curling with condensation.

I saw a storm system move in last night, the gathering line of clouds churning and rolling its way quickly towards the porch I stood upon. Yellow-beaked blackbirds raced past, towards safe havens to wait out the coming storm.

The line of the storm front nears.

After the line of advancing clouds past, a blast of wind shook through the trees, blowing off leaves and buds in furious gusts onto the street. Thunderstorms bring yellow skies in the east, and as I stood there watching the clouds above my head bring a cool wind, I could feel thunder building.

The sky roiling with storm clouds.

A flash popped right over me, causing me to take a step or two towards the door, but it was so beautiful, I just had to wait for the denouement; and so it began to spatter drops onto me, and then I went inside. A few seconds later, bedlam broke out. It didn't pour rain, it gushed water violently from above, obscuring some nearby bushes on the lawn. Wow!

More curling clouds form in the line of the advancing storm.

It was majestic, awesome, powerful, fun, a little scary, and ultimately, humbling; such is the fury of a really good thunderstorm. Enjoy the gathering storm, fellow humans.

Clouds, and the dark they bring.

Mental Illness: Now Appearing Near You

I've touched on the subjects of sociology and psychology before but not at length, though it's greatly affected me through exposure to individuals not in full possession of their faculties. When I watch the news, it occurs to me that I'm not alone in this experience throughout the world, as behavior that starts in the home and ends in a disastrous collision of the private with the public. Like many people, I struggled with whistle-blowing on sick people versus my safety, resulting in the loss of home, health, and income; choices many of us face at home and at work every single day. I've worked with people so sick, they rocked back-and-forth in their chairs all day while at work, muttering curse words over and over again, or whispering threats at employees without any consequences at all. True: the world is unsafe, life is hard, and I accept that. Nothing new to this working class girl.

A cursory list of the latest headlines speaks to the major health care crisis in our country, as a plague that tells its tale in psychosis and gun violence. The "Virgin Killer" in California, who legally bought three separate handguns, posted sick rants detailing his future crimes on YouTube before he committed them. He manifested such extremely violent tendencies that his aunt called the police to alert them about his obvious status as a walking time bomb (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-killings-elliot-rodger-was-described-as-polite-and-courteous-during-welfare-check-by-police-9432530.html), but nothing happened. Unfortunately, someone has to break the law before legal action takes place, and an intelligent criminal knows exactly where the dividing lines are, much better than you and l. That's their big advantage in the world: shock and awe, for the dual purposes of hurt and destruction. Ask anyone who's been harassed, stalked, or threatened, and they'll tell you a similar story, to the ongoing frustration of law enforcement officers and psychiatric health care workers, and that's just the beginning.

There's a recent spate of murders in NYC, again, perpetrated by an individual so unfit for a place in our society, that his parole officer told anyone who would listen in authority that he would murder someone soon, and then he did (http://nypost.com/2014/06/06/parole-officer-warned-cops-brooklyn-ripper-was-dangerous/). Need more examples? No problem. I got that: the school shooting in Oregon (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/justice/oregon-high-school-shooting/), the psychologist with security clearance who calmly let himself onto an army base to commit what he felt was a "revenge" murder (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/us/fort-hood-shooting/), not to mention the massacres in Colorado, now infamous.

What is it? Where does it come from? Just like conversations about global warming and starving children in Africa, the answer is as old as slavery and murder: because it's a part of human nature. But, how did it get this bad? I have a theory that I'm road-testing, which is quickly gaining support. The answer is this: a greater dissolution between public and private in "The Age of Transparency", because there's less room to hide, and for healthy people like myself, that is a very good thing indeed. What was once hidden at home, like a body surreptitiously buried in the backyard at midnight, way out in the country, with no proof of wrongdoing, has now gone public. Ed Gein lived in a place so rural, he could get away with it. Jeffrey Dahmer preyed on homosexual men, a group that traditionally had very little public support or empathy. "Jack the Ripper" likewise preyed on another famously disenfranchised group, the street-walking prostitute, often a societal target for psychotic rage and murderous intent.

Now that today's individual is much more savvy about the early signs of illness (thanks to the widespread access of such information), those of us who grew up in homes of the sick are often forced into the roles of psychiatrist and law enforcer unwillingly, and that is extremely threatening to someone who seeks to hide their paranoid psychosis with violent tendencies. Children and teens who witness this behavior routinely are groomed to accept abuse as acceptable, as they're gradually conditioned to it (along with the rationale for it) through complicity, similar in method to a pedophile or addict. Who are we to give voice to a major worldwide health crisis? We're nobodies, and that's exactly what someone who is desperate to exploit us counts on, though those rules are changing, too. The kids who are artists, thinkers, and makers are no longer the "kooky" black sheep in their respective families, as "The Digital Age" and the "Design Intelligence" movement now lead the world. 

Hmm...who then to disenfranchise, isolate, and victimize? It's become harder to do so, and so the disordered responded by setting up their family members through constant vicious attacks in secret, sabotaging them until they appear to be the opposite of what's true in public, because that's what bad parents do. I saw a story in that vein just yesterday: a girl was raped, then her crazy parents pushed her into the media spotlight to get attention for themselves, and then they forced her to take to "the low road" through deliberately enforced impoverishment to survive, after they cut her off financially. The result? 

A teenage pregnancy and a convict "baby-daddy", gaining plenty of evidence to do her in and discredit her point of view. In order to survive adverse conditions, it's not uncommon among whistle-blowers in the home to be singled out as a primary target for family scapegoating. After all, what can a dependent teenager really do in retaliation? They held all the cards, along with the money and their seemingly suburban perfection, except the facts didn't exactly pan out. Their daughter tested "positive" for drugs while living in their home, and now, safely on her own as a working single mother, she's clean, even with random drug tests, which she volunteered to do: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/2136.

I saw an episode of "Judge Judy" that was so bad, the bailiff had to warn the defendant by looming over him physically until he was subdued enough to speak somewhat coherently, bringing no defense to the table or excuse for his poor behavior whatsoever, in a brazen show of delusional cockiness that grows worse and worse every day. Another man on the show, in a separate case, lashed out at the judge in a way I'd never seen before. When she pointed out that his crazy behavior was the result of his mental state and medication, he shot back at her (in full view of the public, on t.v.): "You, too! You need medication, too!", and I actually gasped. Another woman was so unmanageable, her entire case was dismissed, because the judge repeatedly told her to be quiet and, red-eyed with rage, she declared defiantly "I will not!". The mentally ill no longer respond to authority figures, public shaming, financial consequences, or the law.

It's become harder for sick people to find targets for their aggression, easy as it is for us to openly view their sick behavior and then testify about it; witness any reality t.v. show nowadays about dating, drinking, and mental illness. They've been forced into the public arena to act out their rage, because our private spaces have become safer from a growing movement of support and education, thanks to the brave people who are willing to speak out, even to their detriment. And therein the problem also lies—because even obvious outward manifestations are not enough to get someone help anymore, like I observed at any one of my office gigs. A sick guy I worked nearby had ranted all day long to himslef at his computer (OCD), within clear earshot of the entire office space, visibly twitching, talking, cursing, and starting from his chair compulsively, something I often see in other public places like subways and libraries. 

Where once a family could exert financial and social pressure upon a disordered person, forcing them to conform, the economy changed to our detriment. Now, the sick have power and money, which is more easily done with a damaged morality (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/donald-sterlings-mental-health-figures-clippers-sale-report-n118176). What do you do when those in power are mentally unfit to serve our best interests? My generation, Generation X, was painted as "slacker" because as a population group, we were blocked from implementing change by those same corrupt Baby Boomers who have/had numbers on their side, but just like in life, our time has finally come. In the process we became leaders, as we waited until a new population could respond to our ways of thinking, like Gen Y and Millennials have shown through their abilities to adapt to technology and respond to change, embracing a world vision that's greener, safer, saner, and healthier, not because it benefits them immediately, but because it's the right thing to do.

The answer is dual-fold, combined with better healthcare laws and stricter gun laws. There's absolutely no good reason that a college student like "The Virgin Killer" should legally possess three guns for his "self defense". It's absurdly irrational, these old laws made to please unsafe extremists, and it will change. Healthcare must follow suit. Without better mental healthcare reforms in place, all we can do is cry out yet another warning at our own expense, bankrupting our lives in the process, because self-sacrifice is what a honorable person does while actively seeking change, waiting for the tides to turn. And the tides, ushered along by global warming, are turning. 

Welcome to "The New World Order". We've had enough. No longer will the sane cower in fear at the hands of tyranny, because this world operates on one very powerful principle that was previously hidden in the dark, nursed in secret, now reaching its final, unhealthy conclusion as an end to it all, and that is this: transparency.  
What a beautiful world it will be.

Toothpaste, and Other Acts of Kindness

Simply organic, with no bullshit added.

When the last of my so-called "natural", big, name-brand toothpaste ran out, I went back to the shelves of the truly hardcore section of my local grocery store, the ones holding actual organic products, for a replacement. You see, that "Uncle Tom" of a brand has Sodium lauryl sulfate in it (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/13/sodium-lauryl-sulfate.aspx), along with a host of other chemical baddies, which directly conflicts with its supposedly wholesome brand. Huh. A company that lies to the consumer? No. Can't be!

Well, the actual healthy brands are priced so far out of reach of the average consumer (in the $8-10 range, a complete joke for working families struggling to make ends meet), that I knew I had to find a better solution. Like any good herbalist, I trusted my instincts to guide me in the right direction. And there it was online; the solution presented itself to me under me deft fingertips: a recipe for making my own toothpaste at home, and here it is: http://www.crunchybetty.com/homemade-toothpaste-want-to-ditch-the-fluoride?printthis=1&printsect=1.

I had some mint leaves that were turning quickly, so I cut some up and put it in the first batch that I made. Unfortunately, without a bunch of preservatives, real food spoils quickly. Yuck! The next batch was truer to the recipe: coconut oil, baking soda, peppermint oil, and some organic Stevia to take the edge off of the extreme saltiness that comes with baking soda. At first my gums tingled a bit and then ached lightly (not in a bad way, more like the itch that comes with a small cut healing), but, you know what? When I brush my teeth now, I see no blood in the sink, and I brush a couple of times in a row with my homemade toothpaste to get that clean feeling I like.

I was told years ago that I had the early onset of periodontal disease by a dentist, and that I needed really expensive planing (a intense type of cleaning, done in sectors, over a couple of visits) of my teeth to remove plaque, for which there is no cure, according to the slick, hip, Brooklyn dentist I saw. Truth be told, I have always seen blood in the sink from my gums when I brush my teeth, even as a small child. Some dentist or other always told me just to continue brushing my gums, and that they would "toughen up" over time. But, it never happened. Until now.

You're welcome.

p.s.- I took the remaining mint leaves and some of the organic peppermint oil to the bath with me this morning, and I feel quite moisturized. Expensive spa treatments, indeed.

Rainy Days

Getting my feet wet.

I've always loved rainy days for the air it brings in from the sea, with whiffs of seaweed and ocean brine that hang slightly in the air; in short, sharp notes that dissipate right after you breathe them in, bubbling up through grates gushing with the water that is such a bounty to us here in this area. What are you grateful for today?

Food: Springtime Bounty

Stuffed Eggplant with Chicken Sausage, tomato and onion..

 I've been reaping the benefits of locally grown fresh vegetables for weeks now, taking pictures of dishes that look particularly savory.  
Let's dive in!

Skirt steak with fresh Jersey string beans & boysenberry sauce reduction.

New Jersey is called The Garden State for good reason; they produce an extraordinarily huge selection of very high quality fruits and vegetables, making it a veritable gardener and chef's delight. So, when I see them highlighted at my grocery store (which is a mere five minute drive from the Jersey border), I dive in with all my senses, smelling and sniffing for freshness.

Warm radish and string bean salad with honey glaze.

One week I used green beans in my cooking, the week prior it was eggplant. Think of sustainable cooking like the greatest culinary game you ever played: what can you make with what's available and in season? Try it. You might just come out a better chef.

Sticker Art: Crazy Cats & Headbangers' Balls

"Crazy Cat!',  coming at you from the back bumper, baby.

The Headbangers Ball with some politics, religion, and $$$ thrown in.

The Crow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_%28heraldry%29