Flagstaff, Arizona, USA…Part 1

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I’m from Flagstaff, Arizona.  I was born and raised here and have lived most of my life here.  I have lived in other places, but here I am again.  There are times I wish I weren’t, when I am feeling a little restless, but it’s hard to leave.  And for those of you looking to move here, the cost of living is a challenge.  It pays to be frugal here.  Jobs and pay are at a premium.  Home prices and rent are high in comparison to salaries.  All other things are reasonably priced.  Comparably priced, I guess I should say, with other places.

But it’s amazing in so many ways that matter.  The climate is ideal.  Unless you love the rain, or you love the snow, or you love the heat or the humidity.  We aren’t any of those to the extreme.  Technically, we are in a high desert.  7000 ft. in elevation.  We receive something like 25 inches of precipitation per year.  Last winter we received 5 feet of snow over a handful of days, and we hosted the weather channel to document its progression.  This month we were greeted by tornadoes, eight of them confirmed, at last count; two of them did significant damage to the small community of Bellemont, 5 miles west of town, which is home to the National Weather Service for northern Arizona.  But those are aberrations.  We average about 100 inches of snow each winter, and our summer wet season comes in July and August, but it is a happy wet, not a flooding wet.

Pesto Sans Cashews

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I love cashews.  They have a sweetness that appeases that sugar craving.  But I don’t think they belong in pesto.  I just recently bought a bunch of basil leaves from the farmer’s market, and they didn’t have pine nuts, which I guess aren’t really in season now.  They didn’t even have a spot for them.  I decided to buy some cashews, which I love.  I know it’s not a particularly sustainable purchase, since they are native to tropical Brazil, but I’m taking baby steps in my move toward sustainability.  And I’m not about to go out and shake down a tree to procure pine nuts.  There is something in the taste of cashews which just doesn’t balance properly with the basil, garlic, parmesan or olive oil.

Post Equinoxal Happiness

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First day of frost, on average, in Flagstaff, is right around the equinox.  As a precaution, I brought in my plants one day a couple of weeks ago.  I’m growing a few plants in containers this year.  It has been a challenging year, and I decided I wouldn’t plant directly into the ground.  I’m growing some basil and some grape tomatoes, as well as some more spinach.  The spinach didn’t do so well during the summer months, and I planted some more about a week ago.  They’ve already started to germinate.  I only have to deal with covering them at night until harvest.  We just recently had a few days of October storms which were a welcome arrival.  Looking out at the gray skies as the backdrop to the deciduous trees as they turn, and the pine trees with their darkly covered bark from being rained upon, were a pleasant sight at this time of year.  It makes me extremely happy to have a beautiful summer give way to a little autumn storm before we dry out a bit before winter.  It makes me equally happy when the weather generally turns in October and the trees along with it.  To see all the colors and to experience the sound of leaves falling off trees, and stepping on and crunching them when out for a walk.  To know that winter is near but perhaps not near enough.  Post equinoxal happiness!!!

Make It Yourself

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I’m not advocating for a complete return to an agrarian life.  It just isn’t for everyone, I understand.  Besides, it’s fascist and just plain boring.  And how can we possibly pry all the technology out of the fingers of its adherents for more than a few minutes anyway.  I guess we really cannot in some cases.   

But if we want to keep disease in check and curb the obesity problem in the developed world, we obviously need to make some significant changes.  None of these changes are easy and I realize it isn’t all going to happen overnight.  I’m in a coffee shop writing this paragraph and there is one person behind me talking on the phone, and another texting in front of me.  Were I to ask them these simple questions, they’d probably look at me like I just fell off the nearest psychiatrist’s couch; the questions are simple, the answers are dreadful to many, I suppose.  Such as supporting regional (preferably local) agriculture; organically produced agriculture.  Demanding it.  Genetically altering food-producing plants, and then spraying them with pesticides is no longer acceptable.      

If we all contributed modestly to the solution, it probably wouldn’t seem insurmountable.  It could be extremely difficult, but nothing worth having is worth ease of possession, I believe.   

But with convenience food on virtually every street corner, how do you convince people to start along the different road?  And with patience at a seemingly all time low, how do you even get people to listen.  I know there are times when I myself try hard to extricate myself from a conversation that is sapping me of my time and energy.  Perhaps for me, blogging is that starting point.  People can listen at their own convenience, and perhaps have some say in their own smaller circle of influence.One of the solutions:  Make It Yourself 

For example, try making food one day a week. Pick something easy, and that you really love to eat, and make it completely from scratch. Once a week, every week.  Maybe you’ll enjoy doing it, and cook more regularly, and will reach a higher level of sustainability and health.  Don’t go out and grow all your food at first. If you are so inclined, grow a little of your food, buy organic, and in some cases just do without. If you want a somewhat more inspiring invitation to change, read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle.    In it, Kingsolver and her family decide to live off the land.  I’ll let you make your own judgments about their efforts.

If what you like is spaghetti, for example, try growing a small amount of virtually everything in the recipe. If you are including meatballs, you probably don’t want to raise a cow if that is cost and space prohibitive. But you can grow (and can or freeze) the tomatoes and the spices to make a sauce. You probably won’t grow the wheat for making pasta. But you can try making the pasta yourself. Doing all of this will slow you down enough to appreciate the process, and since all the food is fresh, you will truly appreciate it.   

It seems, however, that we have  become slaves to what the media marketing circus is selling that we consume fast food ad nauseum, prescription drugs until we are drowning in them, and clothing and technology and other affectations to sell us as pointedly attractive. 

Please give it a try.  Let’s take back the world from those who have chosen to do us harm.

I am NOT a Fairweather Fan!

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I never really played sports growing up.  It certainly saved my parents any expense that would have been incurred by doing so.  And coming from a big family, that wouldn’t have been the wisest move.  But I watched a lot of sports growing up, and in Flagstaff that meant the Dodgers and Cowboys, and later the Suns (our first real team).  These days there are also the Coyotes, Diamondbacks and the Cardinals.

Fast forward to today.  The Cardinals haven’t played great this season, and today wasn’t an exception.  They came back to win, I noticed, when checking the Internet.  But late in the third quarter, I got up and left.  They weren’t playing well, and I just couldn’t watch any longer.

I’m like that these days.  All the other things going on my life take precedence.  And mostly that’s a good thing.  The economy isn’t great.  I was laid off of work.  I’m trying to get back in shape.  I’m trying to rein in my life and my future.

So I am NOT a fairweather fan.  I refuse to let millionaire football players alter my life in any ways I deem significant.

One Small Step for Mankind

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I’m in the middle of writing a post which will be fairly lengthy, and I thought I would write this sort of as a preamble.

We have a problem in the world:  We consider independence to be such an all important thing that we don’t realize that interdependence is the only way to live.  We call our new reality a global community.  Community implies interdependence.  The sooner we realize this, the sooner we won’t have to complain about how we are being oppressed or used for political or economic ends beyond current control.  To believe in true independence means that you are capable of doing anything without the assistance of anybody else.  Sort of like God.  You can feel falsely independent driving your car which you didn’t conceive in your mind, design on paper or on a computer, managed the resources necessary to make it happen, marketed the product and then sold it.

We are all stuck on this planet together.  We can choose to pull out our big sticks and fight till all the weakest (or meekest) are dead, and the aggressors are left to deal with each other.  Or we can choose to make this a place to live that doesn’t require aggression to sustain ourselves beyond a few, or even a few hundred more, generations, until we are extinct and the planet is habited once more by (sub) human species.

Phooey on Phone Companies

With the billions of smart phones out there (I’m not interested, by the way), it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a phone that you can just make phone calls with and, that said, phooey on phone companies.  I couldn’t find a decent phone in the store (no names, I keep promising myself), so I went online.  I found a phone that at least looked interesting.  It kind of looked like a Star Trek communicator.  So I purchased it when I reached my upgrade date.  I still paid an upgrade fee.  Shame on the phone company.  It lasted almost a year.  I had little problems before the 1 year anniversary.  And then I charged it one day, and it just stopped working.  I’ll spare you the details.  I went to the store to see if they might do something.  But shame on me.  I know they can’t do much of anything for you at the store.  They called the company, which I could have done myself, and they sent me a new phone.  It took a little over 24 hours to receive it.  Big deal, they have warehouses everywhere.  That’s the least they can do.  And since I had insurance, I only had to pay a deductible.  For a phone that probably cost the company practically nothing to purchase from the manufacturer.  And yet we still go on paying outrageous phone bills.  PHOOEY ON PHONE COMPANIES.

Not Exactly About Skinny Jeans

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 I use the scale as one tool to lose weight; many of us do.  But thank goodness for the skinny jeans.  Okay, not exactly skinny jeans; a couple pair of Dickies, size 30 waist.  Currently they are baggy around the legs and although I can cinch up the button or clasp, they are tight around my waist and squeeze my belly, which is not big but it is still there.  I don’t have any grand illusion (or desire) to be skinny like all those skinny boys out there.  I’m 43, after all.  I know I can never get into a pair of pants size 24 or 26 inch waist.  I’d have to lose bone density to get into them, and they still probably wouldn’t be baggy like they are on those skinny boys.  My body wasn’t made that way.  My hips are too big.  But I almost fit into my 30 waist pants a couple of years ago before I put the recent weight back on.  Now they fit less comfortably, but I know with real work I can get back into them. 

I know there is an epidemic of obesity in countries that actually can eat what they want when they want.  I don’t worry about whether I will eat each day, for which I am eternally grateful, but my eating habits aren’t exactly what I wish for.  I have work on that front, as well. 

So I need those 30 inch waist pants to tell me that I have reached my goal.  And it isn’t entirely about fitting into them.  I suppose I could do major diets and weight loss products.  It’s more about eating healthy and exercising to give me all the energy I need to allow me to do most anything I wish and not feel like I need to take any breaks.

If I used the scale alone, I could drive myself a little crazy.  I run, and almost without fail, lose about a pound for each mile I run.  I’m running about 15 miles a week.  When I first lost all the weight, I probably ran more than that.  I shouldn’t say “ran.”  I jogged.  I’m at more of a pace now that I can say I’m running more than jogging.  And then I put most of the weight on, or more, by the time I hit the scale again, which is natural.  I eat enough to sustain myself.    I could really nitpick my weight.  And I know some clothing weighs more than other.  I know I don’t have to check my weight each day, before and after the workout, but I kind of want to know how I’m progressing.  And I’m getting there; this time I will fit all the way into those pants. 

Please Commit to Commit One Selfless Act Today

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The world is spinning way too quickly these days.  I’m sure technology has something to do with it, but I’m sure there are other factors as well.  Even end-of-the-world factors, if you believe that.  But whether you do or not, it is often difficult to find enough time in every day to do all the thing you need to do.  There are undoubtedly thousands of ways to slow time down.  I’d like to offer a suggestion.

 

Please commit to commit one selfless act today.

 

And don’t even concern yourself with whether it has any consequences that you can observe.  If you assume that it will have positive consequences, you can probably be certain that it will.  If we all do so, we might find it to be as self sustaining as the air we breathe and the water we drink, and perhaps we can make such a difference in the world.

  

Happy Birthday to My Mom!

Today is my mother’s birthday.  She is 82 years of age today, which is not desperately important.  For me, in this little posting, all that really matters is that I love, and like, my mother very much.  I probably wouldn’t be here writing, or have the desire for many things creative if it weren’t for her.  She is very much my emotional ground with all the crazy live wires out there in the world.  Happy Birthday MOM!