A Tale of 3 Rugs

...G is for George, smothered under a rug...,
originally uploaded by maneeacc.

Last week I bought 3 new rugs.
Recently we've done some home remodeling ourselves. I'm sure the story of that process will be the topic of future posts since the remodeling is still ubderway and a huge part of my daily activities. Today it will suffice to say that we replaced the floor. We took up a ratty old carpet and replaced it with wood laminate. So I needed some area rugs.
In my typical fashion, I obsessed online over what to buy. I looked at a lot of rugs. You see, for one thing, this remodeling process has been the culmination of my awakening to color. For the first time ever I have color on my walls. My floor is a beautiful pale maple color. And now that I have the color on my walls, I can really feel what other colors each room is calling for. And the cool hardness of the floor needs some softness and warmth.
I'm still afraid of making color mistakes though. So I spend a lot of time online looking at color, and then walking into the room and seeing. And then imagining. And then trying to let the colors, both of the color of the prospective rugs and the color of the walls, just hit my eyes and go past all my words till I just feel the right color to chose. Sometimes that works.
And all the while I'm very worried about spending too much money. I was raised by a grandmother whose sole income came from Social Security, so I have money issues that I'm sure you'll end up reading about that at some point too. I don't have a lot of money now, for that matter. So I'm looking and looking, wondering about color and constantly looking for a better deal. And aking "Where's that web site?" You know the one, the one operated by people who have really figured out how to grab business online with great prices and selection. There's always one like that, no matter what you're buying online.
So finally I end up at eSalerugs. ESale rugs has beautiful wool rugs that I can afford, along with beautiful antique rugs and such that I can't afford. These are high quality hand knotted rugs. So I succumb and order 3 rugs. One is small, thick soft and pale blue. It looks perfect in my daughter's room. The long runner for the hallway is faded pink with peach flowers and green leaves to reflect the green I chose for the walls. And, most beautiful of all, a deep blue for the living room with a unique but unobtrusive pattern in it, so soft I went in on Friday and found all of the daycare kids snuggled together on it. What a cozy domestic scene, huh? And I'm responsible for creating it, lucky me.
However, where did these rugs come from? Tibet and Chna is where. So how much misery did I buy with those rugs? How much misery did I bring into my home? If I could afford them, it's likely someone was badly exploited to make them. And I can't forget that. It stays with me. I know the world economy has to keep functioning, and that generally it's good for a country to have functioning industry and to sell products. Still I can't kid myself. I can't leave the misery behind. With everything I buy, I carry that misery, I know.
So what to do? Humans, to some degree, must consume. And I think it's important for me to consume only what I need. Then the question arises, how much beauty do I need? And how do I acquire that beauty. Yes, I do create some of it myself. But as far as what I buy? Should only the wealthy have beautiful hand-crafted items? Don't the children I care for deserve the same asthetics that the children of Sewickley Heights deserve? As you can see, I often wind up in this circular mind trap with conflicting values and desires, feeling foolish for overthinking the most mundane of items I'm trying to purches.
I've talked to others that have these some problems with the consumer choices we're given, though. It's not just me.
I guess all we can do is keep trying to further human evolution and human consciousness, while making each individual choice as well as we can. It's just I get tired of everything being so difficult. Can't things just be easy sometimes?
Here's hoping that someday we can all share in the beauty of handmade rugs in a healthy world.
Read more!

The Vice Presidential Debate

In the past year, I've been lucky in that I've made several new friends. One of them invited us to his home last night to watch the debate. Actually he was kind of insistent. I think he views it as a patriotic duty to watch the debates. So my husband and I went over and watched.

Ordinarily we wouldn't have seen the debate. We don't have any network tv in our house. We only watch movies on dvd. My opinion of the debates differs from my friends. I think the debates are an exercise in propaganda. I do think the study of propaganda can be useful. It can tell you things about what direction the powers that be are moving. It also can be helpful in political organizing, to know what the people around you are being exposed to. But I'm so busy that I don't usually have time to add that detail of knowledge to my schedule.

In the back of my mind, I knew I'd need to write about viewing the debate here, on my blog. Driving to my friend's house I was thinking about what irritated me most about the Republican message, especially in regards to Palin's speech at the Republican convention. What bothers me the most (and believe me, that's a long list to be at the top of) is the meanness.

Let's be honest, that's what really stood out in her convention speech, what was the most appealing in a sick backward kind of way. As a former defiant bad girl, I found myself responding to her tone of tell-it-like-it-is sassy-girl hostility even though I knew what she was saying was a misrepresentation. And I was disgusted. And I was worried. I thought she was showing a remarkable ability to induce people to bypass the frontal lobe, higher level, logical part of their brains and stay in the atavistic, more primitive region. She looked sincere. Her body language was sincere. She hit the right notes. I feared the Republican party would be able to do something with that.

The Sara Palin we saw last night was very different. Most of her speech patterns sounded as if she was reciting memorized passages. And that was the the better part of her performance. When asked questions at the end of the debate, questions that were not so easily predicted in advance of the debate, her answers were gobbledy-gook (to use early childhood terminology). And it seemed to me something was terribly off in her body language. I can't put my finger on it, but her body language gave me an uneasy feeling.

In watching the debate, I wanted to just let my emotional reactions emerge and try to gage how the rest of the nation might be reacting to the performances, instead of analytically listening to the words. I've always had the tendency to take a strong emotional reading in any given situation. Lately I've started to wonder if maybe I can use that tendency as a strentgh instead of bemoaning it as a weakness and struggling to keep up with my uber-analytical husband (not to mention other rising family members, I think you know who you are or which ones you're raising).

I know that the greatest influence on most people's decision-making process is emotion. And I know that as social creatures, humans are very sensitive to body language and tone of voice. Under that criteria alone, poor Sara didn't do too well, did she? And add to that the fact that she was up against Biden, who is clearly a master political debater, I feel bad for her. She's way over her head.

My prediction (lol), Obama wins the election by a healthy margin. The American public realizes that meanness is sooo over. We usher in a new era of kindness and respect, while fighting the good fight for a new New Deal in a good way. We are all much happier.

You heard here first. Read more!

Another day, another dog bath

Last week I gave my dog his last outside bath of the season. It's an event laden with emotion and excitement for the daycare kids, full of comedy and pathos.

I have a silver standard poodle named Pierre. I give him a bath every couple of months. The daycare kids love to help.

First, before we even go outside, I gather the materials needed, the Dr. Bronner's soap (I mix pappermint & tea tree, my dog smells good), and the dog towels. While I'm doing this, Pierre usually gives me a baleful look and hides behind the couch, especially if I use the word "bath". I must confess that I usually do use the word, just for fun. I know, I"m cruel. Pleae don't report me to Animal Friends. Usually at least one kid picks up on this activity and starts a chorus of "Can I help? Can I help?!" This only adds to Pierre's resigned low-key distress.

So then I gather up all the kids and we tumble out the door. By this time Pierre is pretending to himself that he misheard me and no bath is coming. When I walk around the side of the house to pull the hose out, he turns his head away so he doesn't have to look at this distasteful behavior I'm engaged in. He really hates the hose so he's in serious denial by now.

I grab the soap. The less water-challenged kids are, by this time, gleefully dancing around me. The more water-timid are hanging back, not wanting to miss the show, but no more fond of the hose than Pierre.

Now comes the fun part. By now the kids and I are talking about how Pierre doesn't like baths. Maybe one of them is even old enough to start remembering the last bath, and initiated the discussion. Pierre's physical manifestation of his dislike is really quite memorable.

I call Pierre over. His head sinks to the ground. I use my command voice, "Pierre, get over here." He stands up. "Pierre, heel", I shout in a really mean voice. Pierre lowers his head, sticks his tail was between his legs and slinks over like a cartoon dog.

I hose him down. Yes, I know the water's cold, but he's a dog, for goodness sake.

Then we lather him up with the sweet smelling Dr. Bronner's. Sweet little kids stand on each side of him and I place a glob of soap on his fur in front of him and the smoosh it around. Or they barely touch it with one finger. Or sometimes the give one rub and then stand and stare in amazement at the soap on their hand. You can tell a lot about a person from the way they wash a dog, lol. Sometimes a particularly observant child will intitiate a conversation about peepees and poopie holes (sorry if the graphic daycare language offends) as I wash Pierre's not-so-unmentionables.

Then another round with the hose, this time with the bolder children trying to venture close enough to get a little spray themselves. And more discussion about soap and water and skin irritation since my job involves explaining why I do everything I do at some point or other. (I have to be careful when I'm around grown-ups that I don't just unconsciously go off on a little spiels explaining all my movements and motivations,lol).

All this time Pierre has a look on his face like a long-suffering kidnap victim who has come to accept the humanity of his captors, but still doesn't understand their compulsions.

Then at the very end I turn off the hose, rub him quickly down with a towel, then jump back and say, "Go!". Pierre gives a joyful leap and bounds away. He stops about 10 feet away from us and gives himself one of those marvelous full-body dog shakes. He's usually just close enough to get us a little wet. The kids laugh, even the ones who at first look a little uncertain about the water-flying-through-the-air-unexpectedly thing. They squeal with delight as he pioroettes through the yard, leaping and jumping and dashing about as if he's just been relieved of a heavy burden and won the lottery all at once.

Have fun while you can, Pierre. Next week you have to get your ears cleaned. Read more!

Emotional Reaction to the Economy

Here we all are, worried about our economic system, worried about the big complicated mess we find ourselves in. Part of me is afraid to even try to write about it, it's so complicated.

But another part of me says it's not really that complicated. We had an economy that was increasingly built on moving money around, and then on creating money out of credit and inflated housing values. Instead of making products, selling them and making a profit, our economy was functioning on money from refinanced homes. I've been uneasy about that for sometime, hoping my husband was wrong with his predictions of financial catastrophe.

To complicate matters, I have these conflicted urges toward frugality. On the one hand, I find the rampant consumerism around me repulsive. On the other hand, I know that this economic catastrophe will be used to try and convince my people to settle for less. And I am definitely not on board with that. We need more not less, more healthcare, more healthy food in our grocery stores at affordable prices, more and better education, more free time, more vacations, more happiness, more jobs that we can be proud of, more community.

I know, I know. These are simplistic sloganistics statements. But I'm just trying to find my voice here, about these issues. As I write, I realize how deep my feelings and fears are, and how little I have tried to put them into words. I have relied upon doing much more that explaining. I soothe my fears with productive activity.

I know that some of you reading this are doing the same, stocking up your freezers, getting your house in order. So I know I'm not alone.

It just seems a small response when I know what pain is being suffered in this horribly inequitable economic situation. (I guess I forgot to mention my anger at those who let their greed run rampant over our lives.) I think that's why I feel compelled to find my voice. If I could speak my heart and mind more clearly, perhaps I could be a part of finding a bigger, more productive response to this situation, this crisis of the human race. I want to be a part of buidling the collective that will move my beloved humanrace forward, for surely that's where were going. At least it seems that way to me.

So let me try to put my small little self in the right place to do some good in the larger picture. Usually that means not being as melodramatic as I just was in this post, I know. Forgive the overblown prose. It's just that most of the time, politically, I have to practice such self control, try to be so practical and so reasonable and so reliable, while all these passions are roiling inside of me. Rarely do I get to soapbox like this.

More practical down-to-earth entries later, I promise.

Read more!

Oops

So sorry for the delay in posting. I wrote a wonderful post yesterday. Honest I did. Well at least it seemed like a wonderful post to me. (Is that something like the huge fish that got away?)
I thought I had saved it while I navigated away to check a fact. That'll teach me to check facts. As it turns out, only 1/4 of the post was saved. (See, it was a good long one.) Unfortunately I had already used the time allotted to write a post. Other tasks were breathing down my neck, screaming for attention.
So I couldn't rewrite it. I had written about door-to-door canvassing, which I've been doing on Saturday mornings out of the local union hall. But I'll be doing it this Sat, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to write about it later.
In the meantime, my substitute for the daycare is due shortly. She comes once a week. I'll have 4 hours to go out and do about a million things. Wow, it's easy to whine on a blog, isn't it?
In other words, in a little while I'll get to go out and take care of some business and live my incredibly full and rewarding life. That's better, huh? I'll have lunch with my husband and decide which errands make the list and which ones get cut. Afterwards I'll try not to get sidetracked too long at the library. And I'll try to resist sneaking off to have a chocolate milkshake. (Loved ones reading this, please pretend you didn't see that last sentence.) Then I'll feel guilty about picking uo some supper instead of cooking it myself, but I'll pick it up anyway.
So, I'm off.
Once again, thanks for reading,
Tina
PS I found a great picture for this post but I'm having trouble accessing it. Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe not. If not I'll give a holler for some help. Read more!

JUST A LITTLE CRAZINESS

Regarding the intersection of politics and everyday life, these are some of the things I'm trying do in the next couple of days,

1.Put primer on my kitchen cabinets so the time spent cleaning them up won't be wasted.
2.Feed, change, read to, hug, and help the daycare children.
3.Search online & order rugs for my hallway so my poor old dog won't suffer the slippy slidies anymore.
4.Prime and paint said hallway so I can send the rugs back within the 7 day grace period after they arrive.
5. Print labels for and compile a mailing for about 150 regarding the dinner and a movie event my local Progressive Dems chapter is planning. Oh, and recruit some help for this work.
6. Personally contact as many of my people by phone as I can to generate attendance for said event.
7. Get up early tomorrow and go door-to-door for Obama and local Dems in conjunction with AFL-CIO Get Out the Vote campaign.
8.Work with hubby on finishing the baseboard work in living room/dining room.
9. Eat, sleep, bathe & other normal stuff.
10. Clean bathroom, sweep floors & other normal stuff.
11. Oops, almost forgot, can't sweep bedroom till vacuum cleaner goes for repair. Do that.
12. Take yard sign for local Dem candidate over to my neighbor and ask them to display it.
13. Try not to worry about the pears that need picked & taken to ripen in the basement, or the apples still on the tree.
14. Cut basil & leave it in baskets to dry.
15. Laugh & have some fun with friends (yes really).
16. Maybe do some of above at the debate party at the union hall tonight.

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, but I'm starting to freak myself out. Suffice it to say this is one way I experience the interface of politics and everyday life, as an almost impossible mishmash of demands on my time.

But what do I let go of? I enjoy everything I do. Some of it I have to do to make a living. Some of it I have to do to make a life. Some of it I have to do to get out into the world of grownups. All of it is very satisfying.

So, I turned my excuse of being too busy to post today into a post. How clever am I? Won't work everytime, I know.

At any rate, gotta go, things to do.




Read more!

WHAT IS IT WITH THE RUSTBELT?

If you watch the NBC News segment below, you'll see Jack Lessenberry, a political analyst, wondering what's going to happen to us here in the Rustbelt. He says that we want to stay here, that we have lives here.

Well, yeah. We're trying to, at least.

So I've been thinking about that. Here I am, living in the so-called rustbelt. It's a densly populated area. The climate is moderate. We have few natural disasters, few poisionous animals. We have lots of rivers for transporting goods, a well developed highway system (though it could use a little work). All in all it's a great part of the country. It seems a natural location for industry. So why the heck don't we have any jobs?

We used to have jobs. We used to have big mills, where a man could make enough money so that his wife could stay home, and actually make a home. We were just getting around to making it so a woman could also get a job in the mill and make enough money to have a good life.

We had those good paying jobs because we had unions. That's right, unions. We knew the company was not our "partner". Before there were unions in this neck of the woods, things were pretty bad for us here (look it up or read Upton Sinclair). Basically, my people came to realize that they wanted a share of the pie. And they also came to realize that they wanted a pretty good-sized share, big enough to make them prosperous, not just getting by. Heck, mill workers were sending their kids to college.

So we had good lives around here. You know, small-town, kids-running-through-the-yards good lives, like you see on telivision commercials. People had 2 cars, went on vacations, had boats to put in the river.

And now? Well the steel mills went overseas so they could make a greater profit by exploiting some other peoples' misery. And now we don't make anything much here. Certainly not steel. Because our expectations for our lives are too high? Because we know how to organize a union here? Because we have an idea about how much of that proverbial pie is our fair share?

Well that idea and that expectation are my heritage. And I don't plan on walking away from that anytime soon. That's why I do political work. Read more!