There's no better state to cease to exist.

It's snowing like crazy. School will probably be cancelled tomorrow for Xiney and I. We are home for the evening and I have a fridge full of groceries. I had a very simple, very good day.
Jason got off early from work. I'm still hacking coughing but recovered enough to drive everyone to work and school. Went to watch my friend's son for an hour, she got back early from the birth and we got to have tea and visit. Enough time to get to the fitness center for a workout, and to Trader Joe's for some staples. For a pregnant woman at lunchtime, staples = $99 trip. By this time it was really coming down, and Jason was done with work an hour before Bean gets off from school.
(This is where I start to love life.) We decided to go eat pizza, and got a table at Joanie's, upstairs by ourselves, by a big window overlooking the snowfall. I don't know, I just love pizza in the snow. And we were both ravenously hungry, and the pizza was great and the atmosphere was perfect.
We started thinking about the part of this song "The President's Dead" by Okkervil River, where the narrator of this amazing, stream of consciousness song about the president getting shot says, "If you've ever lived through a day where the littlest things/And the littlest ways made you feel you were blessed," when describing some ordinary, perfect moment.
"I can truthfully say that my day was like that..."
I was going to reprint that lyric, but the whole song is so amazing, and its even better in context. So I'll just bold the part I'm talking about. If anyone wants to teach me how to post an mp3, I'd do that, too.

The president's dead, the radio said,
Dear friends, is it not so horrible?
A shock through my heart, like a knife right through bread,
The newspaper said: the president's dead.

The sea doesn't dry and the sky isn't split,
But friends it just seems so wrong, don't it?
A shot from the crowd, and a shot in the head,
The president's lying on the tarmac dead.

He's lying face down with his black-dressed agents
Guns drawn, running around, and the early obits
Say he was a good man, you can't argue with that
Not today you can't, not now you can't.

In the media tent where they spin and they slant,
They just foam the mouth and they champ at the bit,
Those bloodsuckers can wait til those vultures cool it,
The newscaster said, "The President's dead."

Let's imagine the way, let's say 30 years in,
How somebody will say, "What you were doing when...?"
On a beautiful day, I was waking up and
I was lying in bed with my girlfriend.

And the eggs on the plate, and the bacon hissin'
And the coffee was great, there was spring on the wind.
If you ever lived through a day where the littlest things,
And the littlest ways made you feel you were blessed.

And if you died right then, well you know you'd be missed,
But there's no better state to cease to exist,
And you wouldn't feel sad, and you wouldn't resist
Cause you knew what you had, and were thankful for it

In your own little way. I'm a small quiet man,
I've got no wars to win, I don't have a big plan.
But I love my new place, and I love my old friends
And I scrimp and save, and one day I'll have kids.

I can truthfully say that my day was like that,
'Til the radio playing on the stand by the bed
Fired out this report and in three words they said,
Like three shots to my head,
The President's Dead.

- Okkervil River, "The President's Dead"

Wow, I'm blown away by that writing, for a sentiment like that to just randomly surface in a song about an assassination. If you've never checked out this band, you absolutely should.

I'm sicko.

So is Xiney, although she seems to be on the rebound first. Ughhhhh. I've got a vicious cold that's knocked me on my ass.
And in related news, Micheal Moore's Sicko is scheduled to show up today. Should be timely, as we've spent the last 6 months or so in a nightmare of trying to get us all health insured without a group plan.
Well, I've still managed to get a few things done. I made chicken soup from scratch from a local organic chicken, a first for me. It was yummy. I've also been reading my meaty book on the history of the women's suffrage movement. (See sidebar, highly rec'd.) And, I had a detailed, fever-hazed dream about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton bickering over the correct methodology for making chicken noodle soup. Upon later reflection, I realize that Stanton was probably right, being the more domestic one. Susan B. probably subsisted on raw apples and beef jerky.
Xine, for her part, has watched about 1,000 hours of TV in between fevered naps. Here are my critical ratings of her library dvd choices this week:
The Best of Electric Company, Season 4: 5 stars
Pee-Wee's Playhouse Episodes 8 - 11: 4 stars
The Magic Schoolbus: Lost in Space: 3 stars
The Backyardigans: Movers and Shakers: 1 star.

cheetah girl

Just a couple of pictures of Xiney for you.

The Business of Being Born

I was at Maxine's school yesterday, waiting for pick-up time, and talking with my friend Amy about the film I was going to go see last night, a special screening of The Business of Being Born. Amy, a fellow homebirther, had already seen it and was saying, "Yeah, it's awesome! Ricki Lake naked in a tub, giving birth!" Immediately a dad (father of 3) who was sitting next to us, overhearing the conversation, chimed in with, "Ugh! I don't wanna see that!" We kind of ignored this peanut gallery comment, and went on animatedly talking about how cool that was.
Well, there's the root of our problem. In Missouri, most people have never encountered homebirth, and therefore don't know that its one of the most beautiful events you could witness. Practicing midwifery in this state is a fellony. Congradulations Missouri, you are the last state to remain in the dark ages. For me, moving from a legal state to a illegal one is like night and day. People are misinformed, and base their opinions of homebirth on vague fears and backward notions. Most people have seen medicalized births in movies and on TV, where the more drama, the better.
The screening last night was a benefit for an organization called Free the Midwives. It was held at the Ethical Society and attendance was great. There is a homebirthing community here, but the movement remains underground; the AMA remains adamantly opposed to midwifery, and they have a little more money than Friends of Missouri Midwives.
The film was produced by Ricki Lake, who became a passionate supporter of midwifery after comparing the births of her two children. Her first birth was medicalized, her second, ten years later, was a homebirth. The strength of the movie is in comparing these two models of care. The are some truly horrifying images from hospital births in the first half of the twentieth century, when hospitals were trying desperately to seize control of birthing, but had no clue how to do it; experimenting women's lives with whatever new drug happened to be popular to gain control of the process. Thankfully those days are over, uh, right?
And then, some beautiful births are shown that will bring tears to your eyes when you hear the first gurgly cry of the baby after the monumental release. Yes, Ricki includes footage from her own birth video, which I think is an increadably brave thing for any woman to do, especially someone with celebrity status.
That's not to say that the middle ground is compeletly ignored. One interesting part of the movie is that the filmmaker, who is Ricki Lake's friend, becomes pregnant early on in the process of making the movie, and so the movie is framed by her experience with her OB and her midwife. In the scene that makes me most jealous of their NYC locale, the filmmaker tells her OB that she's thinking about a homebirth, and her OB is enthusiatically supportive, telling her things look great for one, and that he'll gladly be her back-up is she needs a transfer. Words you'll never hear in Missouri!
Although it follows her through her homebirth plans, the filmmaker ends up going into early labor and ends up with a c-section for her baby, who is breech and has some other issues. I thought that this story, along with her thoughts about it eight months later, was a great inclusion in a movie about natural birth, for the people who demonize homebirth are quick to point out that "things can go wrong." To which we homebirthers reply, we know, we know! Believe us, we're glad hospitals are there! We are simply asking for a safe and legal option to homebirth.
Occasionally this film gets heavy handed, with ominous music playing as the camera creeps down hospital halls. I know that not all hospital births are nightmares; my sister had four stress-free natural hospital births, one of which I was blessed to witness. I don't recall any ominous music playing, just, you know, tears of joy and stuff. But it does make a strong case for lack of intervention, and lays out how problems can snowball from labor-inducing pitocin, instead of letting things unroll naturally.
So overall, I highly recommend this movie. I hope it does some good in bringing natural birth information, including images of homebirth, to the mainstream. Add it to your queue!

Resolution Locavore

"Homegrown
is all right with me
Homegrown
is the way it should be"
- Neil Young

Well, the new year is upon us, and as usual I made a list of goals for the year. Of all of them my main obsession which I've started working on is becoming a locavore, ie, eating locally and seasonally. Most people define this as eating food grown or produced within 100 miles of their home.
"Why?" might be the first question you have, if you are not familiar with the Slow Food movement. I could go on and on about the reasons, in fact several great books have been written about it. Let me just throw one fact out, taken from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

"If every US citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels every week."
and this:
"Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. In addition to direct transport, other fuel-thirsty steps include processing (drying, nilling, cutting, sorting, baking), packaging, warehousing, and refrigeration. Energy calories consumed by production, packaging, and shipping far outweigh the calories we receive from food."
So most of us are supporting the oil wars, whether we want to or not, by our eating habits. But if that weren't reason enough, there's health and taste to consider. But I'll leave the whole GMO, corporate monopoly talk for another time. That's one of those things that if you're on board already, then I'm preaching to the choir, and if you're not, your eyes glaze over immediately. Besides, I'd rather leave this as a document of my personal quest.

So. I had kind of fallen of the famer's market wagon last year, when I was working so much that it was a miracle just to get a meal on the table every night. But now, after renewing my goal of eating locally, I know I have the time and resouces to do better. Now, I still don't have the resouces to make the switch completely. I don't have a garden (yet), or a deep freezer, and there's plenty of things that we are dependant on (hello, Annie's mac and cheese from Target!) that we aren't going to cut out. But if you are going to try this at home, animal products and produce are a good start, so that's where we're starting.
Starting this project in the dead of winter is not ideal. I am aleady in the habit, though, of eating borscht and other hearty winter stews all winter, so I was really curious and excited when hitting the farmer's market this morning to see what the day would bring.

First stop: Soulard Farmer's Market. This St. Louis landmark is like the bargain basement for local food buying, meaning, you have to hunt for it. I love this place. Every Saturday of the year, you see all walks of life converge here. There are Missouri and Illinois famers selling here, but I must say the homegrown produce is buried among vendors selling imported bananas and lemons. You have to know where to go and what to look for, but homegrown stuff will usually be marked as such.
My favorite farmers are taking a few months off, but there are some year-round staples that I knew would make it worthwhile.
Today's Soulard scores:
2# spinach (probably the last of the year, picked right before the cold snap.)
1 bunch kale
2 doz. free-range eggs (best price in town)
1 gallon grade C maple syrup (ditto)
3 # turnips
black bear bakery rye bread
1 turquoise and shell bead necklace, handmade in the traditional style, made by a very sexy Native guy*

*Note: one of the dangers with going to the farmer's market in winter is that you may walk away with a necklace, bought with your last $20, handmade by a very sexy Native guy. Hey, very sexy Native guys have to eat, too! You should have seen me, when I got home, explaining the need to support local artisans to my smirking husband.

Next stop: Local Harvest Grocery.
This place is less than a year old, new to the St. Louis scene, brought to meet the demand of Local Foodies. It is a sweet little gem of a store. Unlike bargain basement Soulard, here is where you'll find (and pay $$ for) heirloom organic golden striped beets. I could never do all my shopping here, but its a great resource and I'm glad its here.
Local Harvest scores:
pack of locally made wheat tortillas
2 bulbs garlic
4 # potatoes
1 # grass-fed ground beef
1 # bison stew meat

As I was driving home after this outing through the quiet gray morning, I was reflecting upon the fact that, like biking, buying locally produced food is a very bonding experience. You feel community pride in the fact that your money is building and supporting your city. Even though I get frustrated with St. Louis, with all its problems, I realize how lucky I am to be living in a city surrounded by farmland.
And to my couple of loyal readers from Southern California, yeah yeah, I know. Eat some fresh fruit for me.
Seriously though, if you are reading this, I'd love to hear how the local food scene is in your neck of the woods. How is it similar to, or different from, winter in Missouri?