I just got back from what I like to call “unshopping” — a painful and ludicrous part of consumer culture.

This is when we de-stuff-ify ourselves. In this particular hour, I made four stops:

1. To the church recycling dumpster, which takes cardboard and #5s, so I don’t have to throw them away.
2. To return cans and plastic bottles, which has the cursed (ker-SEHD) bottle deposit on them. This 5 cent bottle and can deposit went out of fashion like everything else in Connecticut in 1874. However, if I want to get the money back I paid on the containers, I must stand at the automated machine that sucks them in and regularly spits them BACK out to get my loose change back.
3. To the Burlington Coat Factory parking lot, where the Goodwill pickup truck is always parked. To drop off the outgoing clothes, toys, shoes, etc.
4. To the liquor store, to return the beer bottles, because they don’t take them at the automated machines where they take the cans and bottles.

Net result of UnShopping: $6.80 and a temporarily slightly more tidy garage. (It was a big week, as we have recently had a party.)

I know some of you will tell me that I can take the cans and bottles ALL back to the big drop off center. I have done this before. However, this place is a horrific spot, filled lod clanging noises, and with people who collect cans for a living. There is ALWAYS a queue, and inevitably I wait there, squeezed in tighter and tighter between hundreds of bulging garbage bags filled with Diet Coke cans.

As I kick my blue bin of cans forward, other collectors eyeball my bags and sneer.

whywhyhwhywhywhywhywhywhy

I don’t much care for UnShopping, but I do it, because it is apart of putting things away properly, the things that I am responsible for. Also, I want my two dollars!

But ask Colin sometime what he thinks of it and he’ll say something like:

I AM NOT STANDING THERE FEEDING THOSE STUPID CANS INTO THAT MACHINE. I HAVE LOOKED INTO THE THIRD LEVEL OF HELL AND IT IS A STICKY MACHINE THAT LAUGHS AT YOU, COUGHS, THEN SAYS (as Eric Idle), “PARDON ME, BUT I CAHN’T QUITE READ YOUR BARCODE, MY DEAR FANTA CAN! GOODBYE!”

Colin says “Leave em out on the curb… someone will take them!” But I’ve seen the trash guys throw REAMS of cardboard into the garbage compactor and I quake with fear.

It takes a lot of effort to undo our consumer habits. Driving around, following our state’s rules of returns (in order to get the full 5 cents back on beer bottles, they must be returned IN the cases. In order to get money from the automated machine, the machine must be able to scan your retinas and be given a cheeseburger.)

Being a conscious consumer is the perfect recipe for madness brought on by inanity.

I want out!!

There is a lot of wasted life, and so much of our time is used beating back the natural cycles.

Shouldn’t we just leave the rabbits be? Let them mate and mate in our back yard, eat all of our hardwork, hard-earned?

Shouldn’t we look at them and see the best of them? The softness of their fur and all their finest qualities?

Shouldn’t we make excuses for them, and say “Well they are hungry too?”

Even bunnies make mistakes, and end up dead in the road, under apathetic car tires.

The old fairy tale likes to paint Peter Rabbit as the prodigal son. He’s punished by losing his dinner, sent to bed with no blackberries.

In the winter, though, what will the farmer’s wife eat, if Peter Rabbit is too selfish?

You’ve got to dig down deep, buried the fence where they can’t see. You’ve got to work around their gnawing manipulations. If you want to best the rabbits in your perfect garden.

Some rabbits are not rabbits at all.

My friend Bonnie wants to know what is wrong with our town. Well, I have an opinion about that. Here it is.

The Pieces

First, there are a bunch of us liberals that live in one area of town, up North here. We are mostly white, Judeo-Christians, or has-beens like me who jumped ship and became a Unitarian. We have a certain amount of money and we live in the neighborhood we live in because, whether we admit it or not, we prefer our houses to NOT be rundown or NOT be nextdoor to the former Mr. Ps shooting gallery and bar.

Second, there are a bunch of conservatives who live in the SAME area of town. In fact, there are MORE of them than there are of us. They live here because they like the school systems, they like their privacy, they like white people like themselves and they will ADMIT that they NEVER wanted to go inside Mr. Ps shooting gallery and bar, not even out of curiosity.

Third, (but not because it’s LESS mind you!) there are the social liberals who ALSO voted for Obama who live at the other (south) end of town. They may or may not work at the former Mr Ps shooting gallery and bar, and they live in whatever type of abode a service wage can afford them (after all, this is Connecticut and us whiteys like to be served).

Which isn’t much. And it IS rundown, because they have NO time to fix it up because they work 70 hours a week and have three kids to take care of. They are exhausted and even if they rent, they can’t be bothered to call the landlord, unless it’s dire. They TOO would like to have time to plan their youngest birthday party, and also have to fill out all those friggin’ kindergarten registration forms that require a PhD that NOBODY has.

The REALLY South End

Fourth, there’s Lordship, which is basically Texas. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE, including them) secretly wants them to secede and take the airport with them. Only problem is they are attached to our beach rights, which is the only reason any of us live in Stratford.

The REALLY North End

Fifth, Oronoque. OK, everyone has SOMEONE they know and love who lives a-way up there on Assisted Living Island, so it’s hard to say anything bad, right? Respect thine elders, right?

The best solution would be to distract them all with a really great reality television program featured there, because as we know, every vote in town is skewed by the Black Hole District–where voters have all the time to vote and complain, but no time to actually be involved in the town and do anything of use.

Sixth, the big Fat Middle.  These include all of the following:

1. There’s the guys on the couch. The armchair conservative quarterbacks who slam beers and bitch about everything but only vote when one or two issues chap their hides. Like gun control and pencil skirts.

2. High-horse liberals who are busy homeschooling their kids and feel the lousy government doesn’t include them. So they “drop out.”

3. And we all know the people who say “Politicians are all corrupt. I just don’t vote.”

You want to know what’s wrong with our town? We are the perfect image of America. We are plagued with apathy. We reject and disconnect from anyone of another race, culture, or socioeconomic class– even if their values and ideas are the same as ours. We are frozen, because we believe we are right.

We are Narcissus, staring at our lovely selves in the pool that is about to drown us.

We are living on our 1/4 to 3/4 acre islands of anger, frustration and oblivion, texting and messaging only the people who agree with us. And when we disagree, we say:

“People should never talk about politics or religion.”

We talk and we don’t act.  When we act, we are filling out forms for soccer, pouring asphalt in potholes, and driving our cars in traffic.

That’s what’s wrong.

And I know… this is a lot of talking and not acting. I know. But Bonnie asked.

My sudden craving for Worcestershire sauce-and-butter- encrusted cereal is a hint about my heritage. Maybe in techno-America, the idea of “heritage” is almost obsolete, except that it isn’t. My iPhone 3G will be nostalgia in a year or two, so hearkening back to the “old days” of baking Chex Mix with my sisters for the holidays really does show the history of my family– especially my geographical identity.

Food follows and makes me who I am. In Iowa, I was unseasoned dinners– charred meat and potatoes, canned and frozen veggies. I was simple and fast–a recipe made from the combination of a harried mother of six blended with her despise and ineptitude in the kitchen. The result: heat and serve Salisbury steaks, canned spinach, powdered mashed potatoes.

She didn’t mind the baking however, so at holidays we had old pretzel and chip tins full of Chex Mix, cookies and homemade caramel corn. She served her own sweet tooth.

My years in Kansas City make me long for a proper donut when I am sugar-starved ( Thanks Lamars) and pork dumplings and pu-ehr when I am lonely for friends.

My years in London make me long for just the right balance of warm beer, vinegar and salted crisps, and toasted mates.

I am curious to see what  longing my years in Connecticut will create. My suspicion is that it will eventually take me full circle: that the hardened shell here of natural unneighborliness — and the stark mediocrity of the food, no better and no worse than my Midwestern roots — will eventually lead me home.

Home, where my Chex Mix’s baking…

“So tell me your dream
Lay your head on my pillow
Tell me the things that you hide away
Your pain
Your pleasure
Your sorrow
Tell me the things that you hide away
Your pain your pleasure your sorrow.”
–Blue Rodeo

If you are looking for the less fortunate, you can find them waiting in long lines outside the St Charles rescue mission on East Main on Bridgeport.

If you are looking for a shade different than the golden hues of the New England Gateway, you can stand in line for a free turkey too. And a plastic bag of miscellaneous groceries, with which you will have to make do.

Whose dreams are filled with Stove Top stuffing? Whose childhood memories taste like canned corn and potato buds?

The old man with half a missing ear kissed and blessed me today. I dreamed I found a way to inject my many spare blessings into his empty cupboards.

In Westport, this morning,  you could trade a turkey for tickets to see Taylor Hicks  in Grease. What morsel of entertainment could we dine on any other holy day?

Forget the thanks. Lean on giving. Forget the holy. Remember the day. Remember the day-to-day dreams.

I overheard my brother-in-law refer to our current President as a “c*cksucker” during a recent stay at my parent’s house. This sparked a political dance/conversation on Facebook between myself and an old friend from high school.

The curious bit about this conversation is that I haven’t seen this women since high school. I have no idea what her political beliefs are, but I have no problem expressing mine to anyone. I don’t tend to hide my open-minded, liberal nature.

The gist, though, was my friend N indicated that “there are 2 things families (and friends) should never talk about…religion & politics.”

Are we really supposed to shut up at our family gatherings or lunch with the girls? Is it really the best choice to ignore our unlike-minded family/friends, especially when they are casting slanderous remarks at the Commander in Chief?

Friends and family must be the playground for political arguments and conversation. Who else knows you? Who else do you know so well, so well you can manipulate with a few choice rhetorically savvy comments? I mean, only you know how committed you great Aunt Jean is to enforcing capital punishment for retards! Memorize a few choice stats and you could easily get her thinking about an issue or a candidate she might never have considered before.

Right now, in Stratford, our police, mayor and town council are in a HUGE political in-figthing mess that involves the police stealing medical records to stop the mayor’s brother from being hired onto the police force, while the town council whines about the “absolute power” of the mayor and tries to get nasty about a — wait for it –  community garden (egads!) that he approved without talking to them. The horror.

No wonder people hate “politics” — except that we  “people” (re: citizens, voters, Americans) are getting just what we deserve. The more people with the mindset like my friend “N” withdraw from involvement in their own community and the knowledge of their own government, — or refuse to even talk to their own friends and family about what they believe in — the more our governments become a isolated havens for corruption.

Our towns, states and our nation’s governments are breaking down the same way a car breaks down when you drive it into the ground, ignoring the the pings, clunks, and engine lights telling us at every turn it needs service — oil changes, tire rotations, and a good clean out — serious, committed attention from its OWNERS to achieve longevity.

… that Colin and I are NOT YET with children. I mean, you can look everywhere around our house for kids and all you will find is one very strange cat who will not, for any reason, allow you to pick her up.

The curious thing about being married in the suburbs in Connecticut and being of a certain age is that, well, there aren’t ANY other people around of your age. IF you don’t have children.

The people with children are definitely lurking about. I know this because I see schools and school buses, and I am teaching the grown-up version of their children. But I don’t ever see PEOPLE WITH CHILDREN. It’s as if they have been swallowed up into the parallel universe of KIDLAND.

It may be that they just don’t frequent the bars I hang out in. Or the kids aren’t fans of late night folk music and The Reader. I am not sure. I guess I can’t quite get a handle on it though.

Anyway, it’s no secret to most of you that Colin and I may soon be falling down the Rabbit Hole too. If I can, I’ll send postcards from the other side, and let you know where everyone went.

By this time of year in London, I’d be stir crazy and ready for the end of winter’s short grey days.

One big difference between Connecticut and London, in winter most especially, is LATITUDE.

Stratford is on the 41 degree parallel and London is at 51 degrees. In terms of quantity of sunlight, that makes Stratford about even with Rome and Barcelona, while  London is on par with Calgary.

So, by now, even though most of the rest of the week it won’t get up over 38 degrees (which is slightly below normal), the evenings are really starting to stretch their legs out and the days — which have been exceeding sunny of late– are very bright. Bright enough to fool me into believing spring is coming.

• I’ve gotten my bike out. Got to get training for the Bloomin’ Metric.
• I’ve hung one load of laundry on the line and keep eyeballing the temps for another good day to do it again. The smell of wind-dried sheets is bed-heaven.
• I’m started my plans to refurb the rock garden this spring, and am plotting the death of the poison ivy that attacked my sister Mary last summer.
• The crappy driveway — which is now scattered merely with pebbles– is in our sights for the summer’s big project. A four-square competition will hopefully commence by end of season.
• There will be Me vs. the greenbrier , Part 2 – in which I use leftover syringes from IVF to inject Roundup into pervasive vines. Talk about 180.
• We’re waiting, nursing, watering of the seeds which have arrived from Seeds of Change. It’s Veggie Garden, Year 2. (Place your orders now for Moustache Twistin’- Hot or You Call This Medium? Organic Salsas).

Yeah spring is coming, but it is nothing like the tulip-drenched springs springs of eternally-green London. In London, the days are already warm, the skies greyer and the swing to spring less noticeable. But I am itching for it just the same. Ready and rarin’ to go.

So Colin and I were going to do The Master Cleanse. Which is a great way to lose weight, but not the reason why one should do it. It’s a cleanse, after all, designed for clearing out toxins and getting you healthy.

Day one was yesterday and as mentioned in yesterday’s post “Hungryland”, I spent the entire day obsessing about food. Truth was, I wasn’t THAT starving most of the time– I was just OBSESSED with the idea of NOT being able to eat. Food was on my mind all day!

The Food Palace
Colin was cleansing while at UBS, but for me I am at home all week (last week before school starts). On my usual work-at-home schedule, I pass through the kitchen (usually on my way to make a cup of tea) at least a dozen or more times a day. In case you never noticed, food is EVERYWHERE in a kitchen.

Here are the following places where we keep food that I never really “noticed” before:

• On top of the fridge – We don’t have a ton of storage, so cereal and chips for there.
• Tiny bowls, everywhere – on the coffee table, on the counters, behind my desk you will find stashes of mini-food, mostly candy and nuts.
• Inside the liquor cabinet – I don’t know why, but apparently that’s a good place to store chocolate.
• In my purse – You know, in case my car breaks down and I am trapped miles from civilization and need a Clementine.
• Colin’s desk – though it usually doesn’t last long. It then becomes just a wrapper or ziploc bag of crumbs, which stays there forever and ever, until I clean his desk.
• On the back porch – which we use as a second fridge during the winter. Don’t tell the squirrels or the local  homeless, as it isn’t locked.
• Finally, on the TV – not real food, of course, but advertisements for EVERYTHING, made to look its delicious-best. Argh!

So, anyway, we decided last evening that we were doing the cleanse for the wrong reason– because we are currently fat and lazy and look for a quick way to lose weight. And then we ate pork chops and broccoli. Yum. I was so exhausted from not eating, I fell asleep at 9 p.m.

So instead of committing to starving ourselves for 10 days, we are going to start cooking more healthy foods and get moving again. Anyone up for a winter hike?

If anyone is wondering what I was doing on election day, have a look at this photo…

This is LONG BEACH, an image taken from the air a few years ago, of one of the beaches owned by my town, Stratford, CT. On election day–all but about two hours, anyway–I spent the day at Wilcoxson School, my local polling place, “poll standing.”

I’ve always been a bit mouthy about my environmental opinions, but never gotten this involved in an issue before. But I could see clearly the Town of Stratford needed to let this beautiful piece of coastal land be released to the Trust, for the benefit of the town, and for our future generations. I was passionate about it–even wrote a long letter to the Mayor saying so… mostly because a young man came to my door and asked if I would.

And I made a donation. It was my town, after all, and I cared about it. And then when I got called and asked to donate time, I wasn’t sure I could, but eventually I saw that Tuesday, election day, was wide open for me. I couldn’t say no.

Poll standing– standing at the poll place and handing out information to those walking in to vote– was a revelation for me, but not totally unfamiliar. After all, when I used to vote in Kansas City, at the little church on Westport Road, I relied on the poll standers to give me information on issues I hadn’t been brilliant enoough to bone up on beforehand. They never let me down. This time it was my turn to encourage voters to “turn the ballot over the state and local issues” as I handed them my flyer on Vote YES!

A curious thing happened that made me realize how quickly the poll standing became important to me. On election day, I took about two hours off from the polls. I was at home, eating lunch and warming up. But most of all, I was fretting. I was gaining a whole new vantage point on election day as I sat watching a rerun of “House” and worried.

Look at that photo again, the lovely coastline. If I stay at home, I thought to myself, for even another 10 minutes, I might miss that one or two voters that make the difference. I might miss the chance to shift the vote and save the shoreline.

My shoreline.

I went back and stayed there, following the voters as much as I could, up to the 75 foot line. I was just one person at Wilcoxson, so I didn’t save Long Beach. I was a minuscule part of a big Stratford Citizen movement, with the Trust for Public Land.

But no matter how small my part was to the YES vote, it was enormous to me. YES to Long Beach changed how I saw my part of the political machine–local and powerful, a voice for change, when people really are listening.