Critical Exponent

Words of hope, courtesy of Jared Diamond’s opinion piece in The New York Times on consumption trends across societies:

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates.

A recurring ideal in our house is sustainability. We want to have as small a foot print as possible on the natural world, and indeed to leave our physical and social environment better than we found it. Our decisions are very deliberate (can we keep our buying to a minimum? can we resist the urge to drive when alternatives exist?). By the standards of our society, we’re doing well, though we harbor no illusion that we are either trailblazers or paragons of consistency. We are still more dinky guppies than granola hippies, and the tension between the two is at times exhausting (must we process again?). Such is the price we pay for conscious living.

We have big plans to make our new house more green: edible garden, native plants, solar panels…. We took the first step this weekend, when we set up our very own vermiculture system. Yes, that’s right, we purchased (there’s that consumerism!) a worm factory. Red wiggler worms, it turns out, excel at digesting many kitchen and yard scraps into castings that make a very valuable compost and a nutritious “tea” for garden plants. We’ve set up the wigglers in their new home and fed them. Now we just have to wait, see, and fine-tune.

We also started work on our back yard. We planted a big lilac tree (obtained free on craigslist) and a winter currant bush (obtained cheaply from the arboretum). We moved some of the shrubs from the front garden to the back, and we topped it all off with fresh wood chips from the neighborhood tree recycling program (they delivered a whole steaming pile of them to our door!).

L’chaim!

I beat traffic heading in to work from Doe Bay.

Terribly back-dated entry. Photo system was in flux.

Check out walkscore.com.

Why you and I should care about the farm bill: it determines what we eat

Do you know why cats’ eyes shine in the dark? Or why they purr? In fact, why do cats do all the things they do?

I don’t know all the answers, but I can tell you one thing: it sure is fun seeing it first-hand!

Yes, you read that right. We have a cat. Here’s the story:

Ever since we rescued Silly in Mobile, AL, I’ve been hankering for a pet. I’ve never had one, you see, and Knox always enjoyed his pets. We didn’t think anything would come of it since we were so busy looking for a house, and Knox is allergic to cats, and well, it is a bit unhygienic.

By a strange twist of fate, however, our friends D & C were looking to give one of their cats a vacation. This cat was always very shy, and felt so intimidated by the relative-newcomer dog and cat that joined the family, as well as the rambunctious humans, that it would often just stay upstairs, hiding. It would go on the roof at night, but rarely downstairs. This came to be a problem, since downstairs is where the litter box was. After one too many instances of cat pee on the bed, D & C decided this animal needed a more relaxing milieu.

And that, you see, is how Galli came to live at the Summit Manse, a.k.a. Club Fey.

She was very nervous and shy at first, and shed like crazy from the stress. Before too long, though, she got used to the good life and would consent—no, no, demand—to be rubbed. She quickly came to appreciate the fine pleasures of savoring the catnip ball and of pursuing the feathers-on-a-stick. Still skittish enough to always want an escape route, she nevertheless was quite adventurous in exploring the whole house. One time, in fact, we underestimated her shyness and let her escape through on open window. What a stressful search we had! She came back on her own later that night, to tears of joy and, a few days later, a cat collar.

My latest discovery into this feline’s psyche? She loathes the slinky with a passion and a hiss. But just hide a salmon treat inside and let her be and, well, her aversion is no match for her gluttony.

We have formed a team, The Calftones, to participate in The Big Climb, a fundraiser for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Please consider sponsoring me as I climb the steps to the top of the Columbia Tower:

• 69 flights
• 1,311 steps
• 788 ft elevation

If you are reading this, then you too can swap soup!

The First (Inter)National Soup Swap Day is scheduled for January 23, 2007. There will be soup swaps occurring in Seattle (here’s the last one), Boston (here’s the last one), and Washington, DC (new location). If you are not in any of these cities, or want to participate with your own crowd, set up your own soup swap (here’s how) and tell us about it. If you are in one of these three cities but have not participated before, let us know and we will add you to the invite list.

Click on the logo for more info:

Contacts

Seattle: Knox, me

Boston: Wolftone

Washington, DC: Gracious Bowl

I’ve just come back from Seattle, where most of the city is Wi-Fi enabled. While some residences are on secured networks, most cafés and libraries are open and free.

Why can’t Boston do the same?

It’s astounding that a city boasting world-class universities and high-tech business is lagging so far behind. There is an initiative to bring free public WiFi to Boston, first announced in February, but when will it happen? Wil it be enough? Dishearteningly, some of the institutions that do provide WiFi block many non-web and non-mail ports. This is true of the Brookline library, and, reportedly, of the BPL.

Here’s one list of WiFi hot spots and here’s another for the Newbury Street area.

C’mon, business owners, it makes good sense to provide free unrestricte WiFi: people will linger more, create more community by being out of their homes and offices, and shop more as they surf.

During the recent trip to Vancouver, Knox and I came across Momentum, a store specializing in grooming products for men. The clientele is obviously largely gay men. The owner was very helpful in explaining the various products and how they could help us, too, look our best.

While we dropped a nice wad of guppie change there, the verdict is out on the products. Knox’s bubble bath did not bubble with as little bath liquid as was promised. My badger-hair shaving brush (from badgers in China, which are not protected nad form part of the diet there, apparently) and the pink water-activated shaving foam I’m not convinced give me a closer shave than the nylon-bristled shaving brush from Brooklyn and the $2 shaving soap from CVS.

That said, the Brave Soldier Shower Up (for those of us who shower multiple times a day) felt awfully luxurius, and the Anthony Logistics for Men mask sample felt effective (and looked hilarious!).