True Confessions

I have a mind-crush but nothing else (honest!) on someone who has a significant overlap in reading tastes. I find myself cataloguing reading suggestions and then following up on them in the hope I can be caught at some doctor's office, or on the bus, or at a teahouse reading them and an opening for a friendship can happen. I'd rather not risk a friendship with the actual mind-crush right now -- pretty sure I have nothing to offer, although I *DID* offer him Dawn Powell, of whom he had not heard, and then now HIS bookcrush tells him about Dawn Powell... here it happens: the Bizarre Book Triangle.

Today I am thankful for a hit of energy (tyrosine!) and mindfulness/discernment which elude me far too often.

more booklist for later

I wish my library would expand its readers' book list capacity beyond 100 titles.
Don Robertson - Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread
Thomas Perry - Metger's Dog
Kathryn Davis - The Thin Place
Christopher Moore - The Stupidest Angel
Janet Evanovich - One for the MoneyJohn Burdett - Bangkok 8
Don Quixote
Anna Karenina
Julian Barnes - England, England

CCF and double-speak

I've been reading about the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) this morning. It appears to be a front group for food and liquor processors and conglomerates, so it should be no surprise that any pro-consumer or environmental or pro-health group would be marked as "activist."

I wonder why corporate conglomerates that restrict consumer choice by lobbying for legislation to harm or crush small and independent farming never get the "Nanny State" label by the CCF-supported site "ActivistCash" but suburban homesteaders like Joan Gussow do.

I am familiar with and influenced by only a few of the entities below. I'll be reading more about the others to see how they have individuals' and consumers' interests at heart.

If what you do is of benefit to others, deceptive front groups and name-calling are not necessary.

Adbusters
American Corn Growers Association
Center for Food Safety
Center for Media & Democracy
Center for Responsible Lending
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Chefs Collaborative
Dakota Resource Council
Dakota Rural Action
Earth First!
EarthSave International
Environmental Media Services
Environmental Working Group
Farm Animal Reform Movement
Farm Sanctuary
Foundation on Economic Trends
Greenpeace
Humane Society of the United States
Idaho Rural Council
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Institute for Social Ecology
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Joseph Mercola and the Mercola Optimal Wellness Center
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Mothers for Natural Law
National Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse
Natural Resources Defense Council
Northern Plains Resource Council
Organic Consumers Association
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Powder River Basin Resource Council
Public Health Advocacy Institute
Ruckus Society
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
SeaWeb
SHAC
Sierra Club
Tides Foundation & Tides Center
Turning Point Project
Union of Concerned Scientists
United Poultry Concerns
Waterkeeper Alliance
Western Organization of Resource Councils
Weston A. Price Foundation

How Much _______ Should I take?

**INCOMPLETE**
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/10/Vitamin-D-Experts-Reveal-the-Truth.aspx

http://www.grassrootshealth.net

Vitamin D, for pale-skinned people living +/- 2 degrees from the US/Canada border
how much Vitamin D should I take?

Depends on 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum level
Enough to get serum level to 40-60 ng/ml (100-150 nmol/L)
Increase of approximately 7-10 ng/ml with each 1000 IU


400 IU = 28 ng/ml
3400 IU = 58 ng/ml


Cancer Patients take Vitamin D
get to 100-150 nmol/L
test for ionized calcium

test for Vitamin D
establish a baseline
Test until in protective range
then test in March each year (lowest level), then August/September

http://www.healingdaily.com/oral-chelation/chlorella-dosage.htm
Chlorella
5-7 grams per day is quite common and at this level you will notice significant changes in digestion, energy and overall health.

If you have not been eating many fresh raw vegetables in your diet, it is probably a good idea to start out with one 1/16 of a teaspoon with each meal and increase by 1/16 of a teaspoon every 2-3 days.

It is estimated that 25 to 50 percent of any healthcare budget could be saved with adequate vitamin D serum levels.


As long as you are not showing an allergic reaction (such as hives) or throwing up, you can safely continue the chlorella. In a couple of months, the reaction should decrease. And as it decreases, you can increase the dose.

Spirulina: Amounts in tablets vs. powder:
- 6 tablets of Spirulina is the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of powder (3 g). When dealing with tablets, this amount (6 tabs) is usually considered 1 "serving".
(Note: These equivalence formulas do NOT take into account any reduction of actual Spirulina in tablets caused by the use of binders/fillers, because that effect varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.)

- One "serving" of Spirulina powder = 2 teaspoons (6 g). So -- one would have to take TWO "servings" of tablets to equal ONE "serving" of powder.

- There are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon. Therefore, it would take 18 tablets to get the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of Spirulina.

- The equivalent to 2-3 tablespoons of powdered Spirulina -- the amount recommended to comprise a "meal" of sorts (see second paragraph above) -- is 36 to 54 tablets. This is, obviously, a ridiculous number of tablets to take.

Autumnal pleasures

I learned from viewing the Wordplay DVD cover at a local library that five million people do the New York Times crossword each week. Wow, I didn't know it was that popular. Today's crossword was very easy, for a Saturday. I solved it by myself, so it was too easy.

Later this afternoon, on our second visit to the library (to announce the DVD case my son borrowed today was only a DVD case), I started compiling some books for me to read: the King County Library System and the Seattle Public Schools District have carefully compiled lists for children around my son's reading level. I pored through Hallie Ephron (Ph.D.)'s 1001 Books for Every Mood, and aggregated these books for my ever-growing to-read list.

The Thurber Carnival
Barney's Version
The Interpreter of Maladies
The God of Small Things
Christ Stopped at Eboli
An American Childhood
The Wind in the Willows, for the boy
The Art of Eating
The Debt of Pleasure - Lanchester
Tender at the Bone
On Food and Cooking
What Einstein Told His Cook
Midnight's Children
White Teeth
The Sot-Weed Factor
One for the Money (Janet Evanovich Mystery)
How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything: Yes, Anything
When Bad Things Happen to good People
The World According to Mr. Rogers
Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods
Stumbling on Happiness
Gravity's Rainbow
Infinite Jest (yeah, right)
Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland
The Moviegoer (I've read this twice, and would read it at least twice more)
Short Guide to a Happy Life
Call it Sleep - Henry Roth
The American Language -- H. L. Mencken
Just So Stories, again for the tot
A Coney Island of the Mnd
On Writing Well
Westward Ha! (Not sure if I've read this, but it's Perelman, so the deja vu would be welcome)
Thank You, Jeeves
Rootabaga Stories
Side Effects - Woody Allen
Heidi - Johanna Spyri, another one for the tot
Alice Adams - Booth Tarkington
David Copperfield
Final Payments - Mary Gordon
Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
Awaken to Superconsciousness

Discoveries of the day:
Hildegarde of Bingen. The more I learn of her, the more I consider her worth as a potential role model. I will one day immerse myself in some study of Dorothy Day, Simone Weil and St. Hildegarde.

The dog who irritated me to the point where I became intentionally more conscious of animals' sensitivities and sufferings has blessedly been removed to a place where she'd, I imagine, be much happier. Happy dogs don't bark with alarming frequency when left alone for any length of time. Interesting now how when I see a tethered dog yelp and whine waiting for the owner to return I feel for the dog: my irritation is delayed and a distant second. I imagine the dog is probably not used to being without the owner, or is over-stimulated in the presence of strangers and a strange environment as any child left alone might be.

Bean There, Done the Crossword

I must exercise my comedy/writing skills online more.
Firstly, I would do my small part to help people know proper spelling and usage of English words.
Secondly, some people get paid for writing.

Hubby and I visited Bean City Espresso, a very small place with seating for six people for the second consecutive day. Yesterday I started to do a puzzle in a sudoku book, waving my pen across the grid as if to conjure the answers to appear. The affable owner/barista appeared to be impressed. My eyes fell to the New York Times Thursday crossword that he had started: "well, you attempted this so you must like puzzles."

He said: "You can carry on with the crossword if you like. What I'd love to do is leave a crossword out for people to do when they come in and out, we could all solve it together." We agreed this was a good idea and started on the Thursday puzzle, with help from the husband. I can solve the Thursday puzzle with help from a smart person in about twenty minutes.

So we come in today, because he serves great Cafe Viennas, and has organic this and stevia that, and good reading/puzzling material, and he says "oh wait! I don't have the paper yet!" and he runs out of the shop to grab a local newspaper. We are left to chat with a friendly customer reading a JavaScript technical manual. I am super-impressed that he would think to buy the newspaper: I figure he does this on a daily basis, but to consider that we might want to do the crossword is excellent. Get this: there are people who like to watch people solve crosswords. I'm not very good at crosswords myself. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "I use the Internet to solve the TV Guide puzzles" and 10 is Tyler Hinman or Ellen Ripstein, I am a 5: the one who frequently needs help on Thursday -> Saturday puzzles. Solving a Friday or Saturday puzzle by myself is a triumph.

Friday took us an hour to do, even with some straightforward nine-letter entries: FREETIBET, AIRCANADA, THEGRUDGE, ERIECANAL. The thing with the crosswords is that my best bets are: getting a bunch of shortish pop culture clues, and scoring big with at least one nine-letter to fifteen-letter entry across the grid. I start out slowly, gulp some liquid splendour, and then the synapses fire and the letters get filled in.

We had some misdirection and wrong answers -- shame on me, for we were using a pen, but ultimately we filled in the grid with at least answers that connected and made sense to us.

Tomorrow he's going to get the Saturday puzzle. I hope he's open early enough for me or my husband.

Thoughts on checking The Ultimatest Grocery List

Get your copy at GroceryLists.org

I am experiencing technical difficulties typing this. One of the animals sprayed on the bed, a definite no-no, and because we don't know which one did it, we've limited bedroom access to creatures who can twist a doorknob. In retribution, the cat most vocal in protest has sat on my list.

The grocery list isn't exhaustive. Every subcategory in Foodstuffs and Household has two blank lines for specialty, unusual or local items. I did not see a category for dried beans, peas, legumes and bulk grains. Cereal is in "various groceries." How we shop for foods is more complicated, now that our eyes have been opened to food politics.

The devisers of this Ultimatest Grocery List have a hilarious Household subcategory of Carcinogens: pick up arsenic, asbestos, cigarettes, radionuclides, and vinyl chloride. Radionuclides I wasn't aware of until now. Judging from my family's history, I don't have to work hard to get cancer, don't understand why I should pay for it.

Meat we usually order once a month from a rancher in Walla Walla.
Fish we get either from a longtime company in the Univ District or from the Farmers' Market. Although we have been buying from Trader Joe's.
Dairy and eggs we get at Trader Joe's or nearby supermarket in a hurry.

When we feel we have a big list (20 items or more) we'll go to a regional chain store that offers bulk cereal, grains, and features food offerings from local producers.

But seriously, the more reading one does, the more one comes to understand a lot of processed food just isn't good or healthy.
Costco is where we go for toilet paper, olive oil, detergent, cat litter, toothpaste, tooth brushes, bleach, fruit juice, coffee, soup base, broth, soups, chicken breasts, pens.

Vegetables and fruits we get from a Community Supported Agriculture subscription or from farmers' markets or farms in special cases, like our annual county Harvest Celebration tour.

Now that we've learned to read labels, there's so much we no longer buy from the supermarket. We used to spend about $5000 at the corner supermarket, but management idiocy, irritated check-out personnel ("I know the other store's club card works but I'm not allowed to scan it and neither are you.") and displays that restrict foot and mobility wheel traffic keep us burning fossil fuels elsewhere. Another reason to consider moving, I guess.