watching the children and the garden grow

 

photo: gardengrowth.com

Victory of the day: Convincing Leprechaun that we should do the CSA program at Stone Soup Farm this summer. I’ve been obsessed with CSAs since I first discovered them a couple of years ago thanks to Barbara Kingsolver, but it never seemed particularly practical–I worried it would be too expensive, and a lot of times you need a car for pickup. Lately, though, I’ve been on this kick of saying “what the heck” to as many adventures as possible, and after talking to my buddy Stef about it last night, I think we’re going to hop on board.

If you’re not familiar with CSAs, the basic gimmick is that you pay  a certain amount of money up front to a farm for a percentage of the harvest over the course of a growing season. Every week you go and pick up your share for the week–a box of whatever happens to have sprouted from the ground over the last couple of days. Or, like I said to Leprechaun when I gave him the hard sell–a treasure chest! Of vegetables! Every week!

I was sort of worried about the cost-effectiveness of this particular endeavor, but when I did the math it turns out that a half-share works out, over the course of twenty weeks, to about what I’d pay for anemic tomatoes at my local Stop and Shop. So in addition to being community-friendly, this one’s wallet-friendly, too. 

Oh MAN I am already fantasizing about the kale.

Frugal Friday: Give My Regards

 

photo: microscopiq.com

A girlfriend of mine was in a production of Little Women at my alma mater last night. I’ll be honest: I wasn’t super thrilled about going, since I’m still coughing and sputtering like a broken down car, but after reading Anne’s post about being the kind of friend who shows up, I dragged my sorry self downtown.

 

And I’m really glad I did.

 

Our tickets were actually comped (thanks, E!) but it occurred to me that even if they hadn’t been, supporting college (and high school, and community) theater is one of the easiest and least expensive ways out there to get your culture on. Tickets are generally less than twelve bucks, a total steal compared to Broadway or a national tour, and the staging and performances are often (if not always) professional-quality. The costumes in last night’s show were particularly fabulous.

 

I’m a total theater geek (and so is Leprechaun, although you’d never know it to look at him and he’d deny it if you asked), but the cost is often prohibitive, and the stuff that comes through here on the big tours isn’t always stuff I’m dying to see (Dora the Explorer, anyone?). But small-scale theater is nothing if not interesting, unpredictable, and live—for about the same cost as a movie ticket.

 

We went for dinner before the show, at a family-style Italian place all decked out for Christmas, and by the time the play was over I was feeling positively festive.  Said Leprechaun on the way home: “That was a good thing to do.”

 

Yeah, it was.

 

Happy Friday, you guys. 

a gash, a rash, and purple bumps

I wasn’t a particularly sick kid. I hardly ever got sent home from school; afternoons spent in bed watching Primetime in the Daytime were always few and far between. If I did stay home, I was usually up and about by lunchtime, pestering my mom about being hungry and complaining about how bored I was.

 

Until the last few years.

 

I don’t know what gives. I take a vitamin. I’m a frequent hand-washer. I drink a lot of water, and I always eat my vegetables. But I swear, someone can sniffle at the other end of the subway car, and I might as well dig out my cell phone and call in sick to work for the next week and a half. I’m constantly under the weather—sneezing and coughing from October straight through April, runny nose and aching ribs. The good people at Vicks could send their kids to college for what I’ve spent on NyQuil in the last year alone.

 

Still, the older I get the less a fan I am of conventional remedies. I hate gulping down horse pills and swallowing teaspoon after teaspoon of Robitussin, pumping my body full of chemicals and hoping for a modicum of symptom relief. After spending all of Thanksgiving hacking like a 75-year-old chainsmoker with emphysema, I dug some DM out of the medicine cabinet at my mother’s house, but it did nothing except for leave a bad taste in my mouth and make me feel vaguely fuzzy.

 

Frankly, a shot of tequila would have accomplished that just fine.

 

I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, but assuming this current grossness is just another cold, I’m going to try a pharmaceutical embargo for the next few weeks. I’m interested to see if more conscious caretaking—more sleep, a little light exercise, water and tea and chicken soup and long soaks in the tub—can perk me up again.

 

Can’t hurt, that’s for sure.

 

What do you all do when you’re feeling crummy?