Warm and Cozy

Several years ago a bunch of us female botany types who also kill weeds were at a meeting together and in the evening we all took out our knitting and knitted hats and discussed the best herbicide for killing yellow starthistle and other evil weeds. It was delightful. Since then I have subsequently learned that the stitches that I learned in my mommy and me knitting group somehow are not actually knitting. I swear I have actually made at least three baby hats, three scarves and a baby sweater, none of which fell apart. But still, my knitting is in somewhat of a hiatus. So when it started to get chilly here and even chillier in my office and my friend Sylvia e-mailed me that she was doing a lot of knitting (she is one of the botany knitters), I asked her to knit me a hat. Imagine my delight when this beauty arrived in the mail! I LOVE IT. Thank you Sylvia! I took these pictures myself, can you tell?

Finally All the Old Medicine is Out of the Fridge

Josie has been off of antibiotics now for about six months. She is doing great. No new infections and she seems as healthy as some animal that is very healthy (horse? donkey? llama? What is an opinionated small animal that is very healthy? Pygmy marmoset?). We had been storing all of the leftover antibiotics in our refrigerator until we could take them to the pharmacy to be properly disposed of. Finally I couldn't take it any more because we needed the room for more olives and curry paste so Mitch looked it up and found out that you can properly dispose of old medicines by mixing them with kitty litter and putting them in the trash. So that's what I did. Here are all the bottles ready for recycling.

Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

Sometimes life can be too safe. Yes, I am extremely happy that I live in a neighborhood, town, country, where things aren't blowing up on a regular basis and I don't feel like I or my family is going to be gunned down in the street. I am fortunate to have been born into the middle class in the United States. But having said that, maybe it is o.k. to let our kids superglue their fingers together on occasion or try that hard trick on the monkeybars or play in the drainage ditch. Those two thoughts may seem completely unconnected. What I am trying to say is that I am very happy that I live a life that has no random violence and very little real danger and since that is the case, maybe it is o.k. to let our kids experiment a little bit with life.

Lucky

I have a pretty pedestrian life. I work for the government. I have two little girls. I spend lots of time reading Dora books and pushing people on the swings. The other day after writing a post on my blog I looked at a couple of the blogs that are located near my blog on blogger. It was a dark thirty minutes of reading. After a blog focusing on dealing on a daily basis with a personal disease where your brain grows too big and squeezes out the bottom of your skull there was a family blog for a family whose two year old daughter is dying of a genetic nerve disease. Holy crap. Pedestrian ain't half bad.

This Is What My New Years Resolution Looks Like

This is what I see for thirty minutes (I also hear yelling, singing, and lots of talking).

This is what you would see. Sometimes they look happier. Especially when they are covered in chocolate donut.

Becoming a Cosmopolitan

Even before recent events in Haiti, I have been thinking about how to be a better global citizen. As we were driving to San Diego for New Years, Mitch and I heard an interesting interview on On Point where Tom Ashbrook interviewed this woman who recently made a documentary on philosophy and its relevance to modern life. The movie is called Examined Life and features interviews with a bunch of modern philosophers. It sounds like a very interesting movie and in one of the clips Kwame Anthony Apia was talking about what it means to be a good person, a good citizen, in the global age. He talks about how it is relatively easy to do right by your friends, your family, and even your local community, but what does it mean to be a good citizen when we are all connected now globally? Kwame terms this new form of community and citizenship cosmopolitanism.

Other things I have run into recently have reinforced the idea that trying to do right by ones fellow global citizens is a worthy, if complex, goal. Believe it or not there is a small diatribe on this concept in the Elliot Pattison mystery that I am currently reading. And last night while watching a documentary on Joe Strummer, Joe philosophizes on the idea that we are all running around in our own little worlds and not doing enough to support our fellow humans everywhere.

It is a bit overwhelming to contemplate when it is all I can do to get my teeth brushed every day and keep up with the flossing. But I also feel like I'm not being a very good parent if I'm not modeling for my kids how to be a humanitarian and how to make the rubber hit the road in terms of supporting people in need and not living on the backs of poorly paid laborers worldwide. Somehow buying fair trade goods seems like a good start but not enough. So while I can't say that I have actually accomplished a single act of Cosmopolitanism recently other than buying fair trade tea, hats, and jewelry for Christmas, I am starting my research - looking into gleaning locally, habitat for humanity building vacations, donations to Haiti, and more.

If I actually get anything done other than staring into my navel, I'll let you know. And if you have good ideas for things to do as a global citizen, you let me know.