The Daily Grind: Or, Why I feel like I'm living in the "Pickles" comic strip.
I had a good work out yesterday, and my trainer, whom I swear is a Buddhist Monk, helped me with my inner turmoil as well. He also applied the foam roll to the darn muscles in my legs that vapor locked this last week. Our understanding is that when I grimace and grit my teeth, he get's to say, "This is all to the good!", and then we both laugh.
So, this isn't a completely beochy post.
Two days ago, Thursday, I took my knitting bag with me when we took my sister to a lab. I took the knitting, but forgot the patterns were laying on the table under some stupid flyer that had been left on the doorknob. Joy, Joy JOY! At least the wait at the lab was not long because we had gotten there at the CRACK of DAWN!
So, when we got home from taking Sis to get her very sore back ex-rayed, I put the knitting bag with the teddy bear on my shoulder (thanks Suzi!) as we came into the house, and I started looking for the phone that I take out to the area of the comfy chair in order to have it handy while knitting. Alas, the phone had vanished! So, after dashing around looking in all the usual places that phone chooses to lurk, I decided to call it, on my cell, to scare it out of hiding. No luck, I could hear the thing ringing but it seemed to be behind something where it never would have been put; was it maybe inside a drawer? I pulled out all the drawers. Nope.
Then DH said, "shut off the machine and call it again." After arguing for a few minutes over that tactic, I did, with the same result only this time I listened with more care. The lost phone rang longer, thus proving DH right about it all, and as I turned, the phone kept ringing somewhere behind me. I walked out to the chair and the sound of the phone followed. WTFrak?
Yes, dear readers, I had put the stupid phone into the bag on my shoulder but had forgotten having done so. Phone found, I took what remained of my befuddled brains and sat on them, in the comfy chair. I did not knit.
Yesterday, Friday, I did almost "Dance in the Kitchen" as I tried to keep from falling on my face after having avoided DH, who came barreling through behind me while taking plates to the dining area table. After my Robo-dancing cum stumbling around ceased, I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants.
Rho, does it count as dancing in the kitchen? I asked DH, and he stopped laughing long enough to vigorously shake his head, "Yes!".
-------------------------------------------------
Huzzah! And, "Let the games begin"!
The days have gotten long and hard; I have a feeling that worry over this caused my own recent "Evac to the Zoooo".
Let Go and Let God.
I want to knit A LOT more ( A LOT MORE), and get those three sweaters finished this year (!!!) ! I want to get my house in order, as in, "tidy" as well as clean. My favorite Aunt once said to me, "You are just a little untidy but you are clean. Just work on keeping it all in order." So I did. The floor tiles need to be steam cleaned. I need/want to get/rent a steamer.
Getting rid of business junk has been very hard. It has to be handled in the proper way. That takes time and care and so much mental energy looking through/at all the stuff! Besides, ceramics is heating up again, or was. We now have a big part of the power grid off line out here on the coast of Cali. I'll just do the things I can do, and I'll wait 'til after summer to fire all of it if I have to. The club has it's own kilns which is very handy for hobby stuff.
The San Onofre Nuclear Power Station, and it's possibly improper design, finally caught up with those higher on the food chain than mere shell fish and aquatic plant life. This last development means that running the kiln will be very expensive. Life in SoCal will again be like living through those long, dark days of multi million dollar crooks, speaking here of Enron. This time it will be without, probably-maybe, some tasty little fraud in the mix.
The Truth about farm labor: Updated to set straight a misunderstanding:
Maybe it's because these kids are, as is the modern term labels them, "Hispanic", but at least 400,000 American children (because either they or their parents were born here) work in the fields*, (see excerpt below) a lot of them working as much as a 30 hour week, and paid very little. They get behind in school because they constantly have to move with the work, to the point that half of them do not graduate, and those who do so hardly ever do so in spectacular fashion.
Today at the gym, I listened for a few minutes to a couple of over privileged Old Farts yammering on about what Obama had done to grant legal status to immigrant children. I think it's fantastic he's done this, and this is why:
What this does is start to help heal a cancerous sore that is on the body of workers who pick and put fruits and vegetables on our tables. The next time you eat a strawberry, or slice up a tomato, I hope you will think about, and care about, all the children working in the field. It's an American problem, and we need to solve it.
What the POTUS did today was to recognize the problem, put some muscle behind getting it solved, and raising this iniquity up into the face of the Nation. It will help the 400,000 American children working in the fields as well.
Voices from the Fields by S. Beth Atkin
I got my copy from the Goodwill Stores online site.
The quote was taken from THIS SITE in a Guest post by Robin Romano, who produced the documentary film, "The Harvest"
If you watch this film, please keep an open heart and mind. The children are bi-lingual, because they are Americans, born here, and have learned English as a dual first language. Trust me on this. They learn it right along with Spanish.
Also, in the credits are small biographical inserts of Americans who made it all the way to the top with so much against them as children of migrant workers. When some studies that I read in the early 60's were first published, migrant workers were poor white people or black people from the South and Midwest, or seasonal pickers among college age students.
Your treat for reading this far is a Sky Watcher Post. Make it very BIG. Love ya!
I had a good work out yesterday, and my trainer, whom I swear is a Buddhist Monk, helped me with my inner turmoil as well. He also applied the foam roll to the darn muscles in my legs that vapor locked this last week. Our understanding is that when I grimace and grit my teeth, he get's to say, "This is all to the good!", and then we both laugh.
So, this isn't a completely beochy post.
Two days ago, Thursday, I took my knitting bag with me when we took my sister to a lab. I took the knitting, but forgot the patterns were laying on the table under some stupid flyer that had been left on the doorknob. Joy, Joy JOY! At least the wait at the lab was not long because we had gotten there at the CRACK of DAWN!
So, when we got home from taking Sis to get her very sore back ex-rayed, I put the knitting bag with the teddy bear on my shoulder (thanks Suzi!) as we came into the house, and I started looking for the phone that I take out to the area of the comfy chair in order to have it handy while knitting. Alas, the phone had vanished! So, after dashing around looking in all the usual places that phone chooses to lurk, I decided to call it, on my cell, to scare it out of hiding. No luck, I could hear the thing ringing but it seemed to be behind something where it never would have been put; was it maybe inside a drawer? I pulled out all the drawers. Nope.
Then DH said, "shut off the machine and call it again." After arguing for a few minutes over that tactic, I did, with the same result only this time I listened with more care. The lost phone rang longer, thus proving DH right about it all, and as I turned, the phone kept ringing somewhere behind me. I walked out to the chair and the sound of the phone followed. WTFrak?
Yes, dear readers, I had put the stupid phone into the bag on my shoulder but had forgotten having done so. Phone found, I took what remained of my befuddled brains and sat on them, in the comfy chair. I did not knit.
Yesterday, Friday, I did almost "Dance in the Kitchen" as I tried to keep from falling on my face after having avoided DH, who came barreling through behind me while taking plates to the dining area table. After my Robo-dancing cum stumbling around ceased, I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants.
Rho, does it count as dancing in the kitchen? I asked DH, and he stopped laughing long enough to vigorously shake his head, "Yes!".
-------------------------------------------------
Huzzah! And, "Let the games begin"!
The days have gotten long and hard; I have a feeling that worry over this caused my own recent "Evac to the Zoooo".
Let Go and Let God.
I want to knit A LOT more ( A LOT MORE), and get those three sweaters finished this year (!!!) ! I want to get my house in order, as in, "tidy" as well as clean. My favorite Aunt once said to me, "You are just a little untidy but you are clean. Just work on keeping it all in order." So I did. The floor tiles need to be steam cleaned. I need/want to get/rent a steamer.
Getting rid of business junk has been very hard. It has to be handled in the proper way. That takes time and care and so much mental energy looking through/at all the stuff! Besides, ceramics is heating up again, or was. We now have a big part of the power grid off line out here on the coast of Cali. I'll just do the things I can do, and I'll wait 'til after summer to fire all of it if I have to. The club has it's own kilns which is very handy for hobby stuff.
The San Onofre Nuclear Power Station, and it's possibly improper design, finally caught up with those higher on the food chain than mere shell fish and aquatic plant life. This last development means that running the kiln will be very expensive. Life in SoCal will again be like living through those long, dark days of multi million dollar crooks, speaking here of Enron. This time it will be without, probably-maybe, some tasty little fraud in the mix.
The Truth about farm labor: Updated to set straight a misunderstanding:
Maybe it's because these kids are, as is the modern term labels them, "Hispanic", but at least 400,000 American children (because either they or their parents were born here) work in the fields*, (see excerpt below) a lot of them working as much as a 30 hour week, and paid very little. They get behind in school because they constantly have to move with the work, to the point that half of them do not graduate, and those who do so hardly ever do so in spectacular fashion.
Today at the gym, I listened for a few minutes to a couple of over privileged Old Farts yammering on about what Obama had done to grant legal status to immigrant children. I think it's fantastic he's done this, and this is why:
What this does is start to help heal a cancerous sore that is on the body of workers who pick and put fruits and vegetables on our tables. The next time you eat a strawberry, or slice up a tomato, I hope you will think about, and care about, all the children working in the field. It's an American problem, and we need to solve it.
What the POTUS did today was to recognize the problem, put some muscle behind getting it solved, and raising this iniquity up into the face of the Nation. It will help the 400,000 American children working in the fields as well.
Voices from the Fields by S. Beth Atkin
I got my copy from the Goodwill Stores online site.
* "10 years ago the ILO created World Day Against Child Labor, but for the 215 million children who work around the world this day should be their day every day. And this should be the day where we also remember the 250,000 to 400,000 American children who are systematically exploited every year as they harvest the food that we eat.
They are there right now in our fields, working at far younger ages, for longer hours at exploitative wages and at greater risk to their health than any other children in America because of a loophole in Federal law that permits children as young as 12, and sometimes younger, to work in 100-degree heat in a tomato field for 16 hours, but may not permit that child to work in an air-conditioned office. And this should not be so."
The quote was taken from THIS SITE in a Guest post by Robin Romano, who produced the documentary film, "The Harvest"
If you watch this film, please keep an open heart and mind. The children are bi-lingual, because they are Americans, born here, and have learned English as a dual first language. Trust me on this. They learn it right along with Spanish.
Also, in the credits are small biographical inserts of Americans who made it all the way to the top with so much against them as children of migrant workers. When some studies that I read in the early 60's were first published, migrant workers were poor white people or black people from the South and Midwest, or seasonal pickers among college age students.
Your treat for reading this far is a Sky Watcher Post. Make it very BIG. Love ya!
 |
| This is the Marine Layer, breaking up, as we headed home Thursday. I love that cooling layer of clouds. |
I TOTALLY agree...growing up in my highschool we had 'field worker' in my class..I believe this was around 8th grade!...once spring came..they were gone-to work in the fields. Until 'Americans' get over their overprivledged, gas sucking, we are better thought patterns.. I posted something on my FB (this guy who owns a farm now and very proud of it) how many younger 'American' workers are lining up to pick fruit for the summer?...yet what do we here? send them back they are taking our jobs.... hmmm... anyway, you hit the nail onthe head! ...and I love your true grit award and meandering on organization, physical care, and wanting to KNIT more :)
ReplyDeleteOh Lord. The economy is so bad that Anglo Americans are willing to take on a grueling underpaid job that they forsook at one time? And, they certainly aren't willing to make less than minimum wage, which is what happens when you are picking field crops.
ReplyDeleteAre they also going to live in the terrible conditions? There are already Americans working the fields, but they aren't what most Anglos would recognize, or want to. They are Americans of Mexican descent.
Sure, then let us send back ALL the illegal Aliens, and should we start with the descendents of the hordes from Europe?
Yes, I really want to knit more, especially on promised sweaters. The mitt is nearly done. Gym today, and I knit when I got back home. Tomorrow is a dragon breathing down my neck day. The knitting goes with me. Sis to the doc for her back. Maybe I'll take some left over vegan cookies with me, too.