on the road

I'm on my way to Portland! Left SF at noon on Tuesday and headed up the I-505. Stopped in Willows. In case you were curious, Tori Burke is the manager at the Walmart there, and she has hung her photo proudly over the paper towel dispenser in the women's bathroom. Took a detour through the lovely green hills east of the Mendocino National Forest, dreaming of goat herds and strawbale barns, clean rivers and chicken coops and beehives.


And when the dream of a compostable agrarian existence begins to tire, you can go to a Republican pancake breakfast at the local school.



It really is beautiful out here. Last stop was the perfectly adequate Mountain View motel in Yreka.

Fun with greywater

If you're local to the Bay Area, you can learn how to reuse household water by taking classes and workshops from the Greywater Alliance. Today, I learned about Laundry-to-Landscape, the simplest form of greywater reuse that involves piping water from your clothes washer to drip irrigation tubes in the backyard.

I'm chomping at the bit to put one into my place. Displacing 180 gallons of wash water each week from the sewer will save us money, and also cut down on water to irrigate our young fruit trees. Very tidy.

Now I just need to run 100 feet of PVC pipe around the back of my building and out to the back of the lot. My yard slopes toward the house, so unless we want to tax the pump on the washing machine to deliver it uphill, we'll need to set it up to work with gravity. Now I just need to find a moonless night to drill holes into the fence we share with the neighbors to support the pipes.

Another tidbit: Read in last week's NY Times that you can make cheese using a pillowcase and couple gallons of milk. So looking forward to an evening's entertainment in May of sitting around drinking and making cheese.

Drip, drip, drip.

Where's the beef?

I'm happy to announce it's been 18 days since Lent began, and my meatless existence has been relatively painless. My protein buddies are tofu, cheese, walnuts, lentils, quinoa, and eggs. I've lost 3-4 pounds and am feeling cleaner and lighter. Finally the flu season is quieting down and folks are out and about again, in the rain, biking and running and feeling good. Yippee!

There was only one transgression: a lovely dinner party with crab and avocado salad and baked chicken with tomatoes. I ate it all, and it was delicious. The meatiness of it neither delighted nor repulsed me. I suppose righteousness of vegetarianism has not yet set in. And I don't want to be that person, who says, "I don't eat that" when offered food by a friend.

We've got tons of veg groups in the Bay Area, and there's often dinner involved in their meetings.

vegnews.com
sfvs.org
bayareaveg.org
living-foods.com/sflife
peninsulamacro.org

National Organizations
chooseveg.com - for beginner cooks and new vegans.
navs-online.org
vrg.org

More about meat

If I ever doubted the power of social media, no more. I posted a snippet on Facebook about considering vegetarianism earlier this week, and instantly everyone knows I'm giving up meat for Lent. Amazing!

Why stop eating meat? Jonathan Safran Foer dissects (no pun intended) our cultural decision to eat meat in his quick and satisfying (sortof like a blt) book, Eating Animals. One read through, and you'll never want to participate in the systematic torture of our furry and feathered friends again.

Now, I will miss meat. Foer states that there is no ethical option for meat-eaters in the U.S. You can't buy meat from animals that were raised in a sustainable, ethical, humane way and also slaughtered without unimaginable cruelty. Foer tells us that no slaughterhouse exists that can reliably knock out animals before separating them limb from limb. If you read his description of a cattle abattoir, where cows are routinely skinned, eviscerated, and have their lower legs snipped off while still conscious, well, you will not contest this. He also raises the overall ethical question of eating animals, period. Why not dogs? Kittens? The thought horrifies us. But give me a chicken sandwich and I'm thrilled. With bacon, please.

He suggests maybe we just don't know how delicious dogs are.

There are also the environment ramifications of factory farming and commercial fishing, as well as the injuries to workers in slaughterhouses, one of the most dangerous jobs in America. It's a well-researched chronicle of the American love affair with animal protein.

Well the good news is that here in the SF Bay Area, we do still have a couple options. Not Niman Ranch, which has gone toward commercial methods to maximize profitability. Bill Niman, however, is now goat farming and you can buy his wares at the Ferry Plaza farmer's market on Saturday mornings. You can also join a csa for monthly meat deliveries from Marin Sun Farms, and get beef from Five Dot Ranch in the Sierras at local stores and restaurants.

For now, I'll see how a vegetarian diet suits me. Garbanzo beans! Tofu! Cheese quesedillas! And it's easy to make the commitment not to buy meat from animals that lived in misery and died in agony, so, no meat from commercial farms. Now, what to do about eggs?

spoofers

OK, I bought this laptop from Toshiba Direct in November, and it's been a non-stop infuriating, energy drain hellhole ever since.

Here's the latest.

The machine has been repaired, twice, and I'm trying to sell it, all loaded up with Adobe software. After two attempts on eBay, someone bought it. She wanted me to ship it to France, so I looked into that. Then she changed her mind and wanted it shipped to Nigeria. (Really?) She sent me an email that "spoofed" the Paypal emails, showing I'd been paid. Great! But, Nigeria?

Here's eBay's response to the matter, which is pretty a 'you're SOL'. Never mind that this person managed to transact without being registered. (Note to eBay: there's no "report fraud" task for sellers on your website. Oops!)


Hello jdemock,

We had to cancel bids for the following buyer because they aren't registered on eBay:

desola4567

Please don't complete the transaction and don't ship the item. You may have received an email saying the buyer has paid. However, that's probably a fake message. To check if you actually received a payment, please log in to your PayPal account. Also, be sure to report fake emails to us. For more information, visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/questions/report-spoof-email.html

If you've already shipped the item and didn't receive a payment, you can request a final value fee credit for the listing. To find out how, go to:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/credits.html

To help you avoid this situation in the future, consider setting a Buy It Now price and requiring buyers to make an immediate payment. For more information on immediate payments, visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html

Also, please consider taking the following action:
1. Contact the company that was used to send payment to verify whether funds have cleared.
2. If the funds are fraudulent, contact law enforcement in the buyer's area and give them the buyer's name, address, phone number, and any other information that may be helpful. If someone is assigned to your case, please ask them to contact us so that we can help with the investigation.
3. Contact the shipping carrier to find out if you can stop shipment on the package.
4. If you used the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to ship the package, consider filing a complaint at:
https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/forms/MailFraudComplaint.aspx
5. File a complaint with the National Consumers League's (NCL) Fraud Center at:
http://www.fraud.org
If you have any concerns or questions, click "Customer Support" at the top of most eBay pages.
We're sorry for this inconvenience, and thanks for continuing to work with us.
Thanks,
eBay

Yesterday, I tried posting on Craigslist. Same thing! I got an oceanographer who was at sea, and wanted it as a gift for his pastor. I got a university professor in Texas who wanted it shipped to west africa for her son. (I mean, seriously, a university professor who can't spell or use proper punctuation? And what parent wouldn't buy their kid a new laptop *before* they left on a research trip?) And then the poor woman whose father was in the hospital but really wanted the system. They all ask for my email associated with my Paypal account.

It must work, or so many people wouldn't be doing it. What's amazing to me is how much time these people spend, just to try to rip someone off. Imagine what you could accomplish if you harnessed all that energy for a political cause, like ending factory farming. Maybe I'll start writing them back with suggestions about how to better spend their time.

$4.19/gallon

Gas prices have shot up here in San Francisco, none higher than the Chevron on Fell St. Ouch! Who knew 89 octane would be so dear this spring?

Now, you might wonder what the heck I've been doing with myself since I quit the corporate job. The big answer? Loafing. It's been great. Of course, financial pressure will force me back into the fray in the coming weeks. But let's take a quick look at all that I've accomplished after six weeks of self-employment.

1. Fostered a dog - Little Joey came to us with a mild case of kennel cough and intact gonads. Just two weeks later he recovered, got altered, and was adopted. Good boy! The awesome folks at Copper's Dream dog rescue are always looking for help: donations, fosters, towels, whatever you can spare. they visit high-kill shelters in rural areas and get the cutest freaking dogs you'll ever see. Check out their Facebook page for a history of dogs they've saved. Good people! [Editor's note: I'd like to acknowledge the forbearance of Asa, our cat, who tolerated repeated humping attempts by this unfixed 6-pound male chihuahua. A heroic effort all around.]
2. Got into meditation - After only 12 years of an on-again, off-again meditation practice at the San Francisco Zen Center, I've decided to get serious. I've started meeting weekly with a teacher, meditating 3-4 times a week, volunteering in the bookstore on Thursday evenings, attending Saturday Sangha and learning a temple job (I'm doorwatch), and generally being friendly and learning people's names. Even signed up for a 4-day visit to their monastery, Tassajara, in Carmel Valley. Should be gorgeous in May.
3. Urban Permaculture! Ever wanted to learn how to make a composting toilet? Reuse the greywater from your washing machine in the back yard? I have. Now I'm signed up to get a certificate in Permaculture from Common Circle. Of course, I did just learn I'm sleeping in a tent for two weeks. Oh well.
4. Volunteering - Got involved with Edgewood Family and Children Services out here in the Sunset district. Mostly I write press releases for them, but might also help with their website redesign.
5. Personal purge. Like most Americans, I own too much stuff. How many sweaters does one person really need? Not 18. Probably not even 11. Of course, it all depends on what you consider a "sweater."
6. Looking for love - After the abrupt end to my date-a-friend experiment last year, it's time to find a new partner. I tried Chemistry.com and was put off by their kludgey interface and high rate of non-response (it seems like half the folks in their system are not actually members, so can't respond when you ping them). Back on eHarmony.com, I'm swimming in hundreds of matches, some 15 years my senior, and finding some diamonds in the rough. Wish me luck!
7. Waiting for acceptance. This has been the year of joining groups. I've applied for membership to Editcetera and the West Point Inn. One will give me freelance editing work; the other the best view of the SF Bay $20 can buy. Other potential sources of work: KitList and Women in Consulting's newsletters. There are also business referral groups you can join, like BNI and Partner4Leads, although for the money, I think I can start my own. Want to join?
8. House shuffle - We said a sad farewell to our awesome housemate Mary, who moved down the peninsula to be closer to work. Last week we welcomed Sonia and Duke, her dachshund, to the house. So far, Duke and Asa, the cat, seem to be getting along just fine. Until he goes into her litter box in search of tootsie rolls.

Other fun things to get involved in:
Wigg (short for "wiggle") Party
The Green Arcade