per·i·pa·tet·ic
ˌperēpəˈtedik/
adjective
  1. 1.
    traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods.
    "the peripatetic nature of military life"
    synonyms:nomadic, itinerant, traveling, wandering, roving, roaming, migrant,migratory, unsettled
    "I could never get used to her peripatetic lifestyle"
  2. 2.
    Aristotelian.
noun
  1. 1.
    a person who travels from place to place.
  2. 2.
    an Aristotelian philosopher.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Florida Sinkhole: Thoughts About Writing

Big Dismal Sink at Leon Sinks Geological Area, November 20, 2011

The depths to which you've sunk before,
The heights you scale today
These things are fit to talk about
The future's not okay

The water level in your swamp
Will drop before your eyes
The world made aware of it
Will cut it down to size

The vast majority of viewers
Wish you nothing but the best
It's the malcontent will take you down
The Heathcliff, hand in vest

It's nothing new and often seen
This saprophytic rite
The feeding on the fallen log
It's natural...all right?


So keep it light and funny
And laugh away the dark
Distract the negativity
Don't feed it any snark


The sign you've sent the malcontent
Is clear for all to see
The all who wish you always well
Enjoy your cup of "T."

Monday, November 21, 2011

Bystander Weekend in America: Have You 'Herd'?

Our bystander weekend in America started last Friday in Pensacola, but the beach wasn't where we started standing by. While SAM used a paid vacation day and I adjusted my schedule, Son and Daughter-in-law both took a half-day off without pay for something that took five years to realize: Daughter-in-law's naturalization ceremony for U.S. citizenship. Freedom in America ain't free. In fact, it's fairly expensive. There's the cost of the application itself, legal assistance if you're confused by the process, as well as frequent travel to and from immigration offices. Our DIL had to go to back and forth to New Orleans and Jacksonville several times over the past several years to prove something. Lawful resident status, I guess?

According to the Honorable Roger Vinson, District Judge, who presided over the occasion, citizenship is an equal opportunity, not a commodity. In other words, it can't be bought or sold. Several snickers proceeding from the peanut gallery (the result of a standing-room-only crowd) made it clear that not everyone in the room believed him. Yours truly was one of the peanut gallery bystanders. The incredulous behavior probably comes from being primed. Reading things like The EB5 Path to Citizenship (Invest One Million Dollars in Florida Real Estate, and You're In!) tends to make you wonder where this country is headed. That EB5 Visa thing is nothing new, by the way. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has been stacking the deck in favor of wealth and fame (officially) since 1991. Bystander effect, indeed. Really, what can one of the herd do about any of it? Shut up and pay your taxes, I guess.

We are very proud of DIL for all of her hard work and patient effort to gain citizenship. She's one in a million.
After all of that standing by, shoeless, sore-footed SAM and I picked up our grandson from daycare and headed for the beach, and Son and DIL went to work. Grandson had to miss the ceremony. Can you imagine a 4-year-old standing and waiting patiently and quietly for hours while a bunch of people spoke of and listened teary-eyed to things like "true faith and allegiance" to the Constitution of the United States? I'm of the opinion that every U.S. citizen, not just the naturalized ones, should have to swear this oath at one point or another. It's prime stuff for thinking about service, integrity, honor, freedom, responsibility...And then there were the songs. Dr. Leo Day sang The Star Spangled Banner to begin the morning's proceedings and ended them by singing America the Beautiful in English, Spanish, and German. There's nothing like music to reinforce some powerful ideas.

While I walked around and sifted and stored some more ideas in my already overloaded brain files, SAM and Grandson dug something up from a hole in the sand.

Ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) on the beach at Pensacola Pass

We joked with Grandson about having crab for supper. He was having none of our nonsense. The crab was set free and claimed by the sea.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Chronobiotic Nutrition--Just-in-Time Eating from a Gardener's Perspective


Many years ago when I was preparing for a career in food-service management, I ran across a useful concept developed by Japanese manufacturers: Just-in-time production. It's defined by the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge as "a management philosophy and not a technique." Originally referring to the "production of goods to meet customer demand exactly in time, quality and quantity," it's now used by many management professionals as a "means of producing with minimum waste," which is understood to include time, resources, and materials. Does it sound like a win-win scenario? Japan's own Toyota Corporation sure thought so and implemented this philosophy dreamed up by Taiichi Ohno, now known as the Father of JIT.

At that time in my life, it (JIT) was just another acronym--skeleton of a word--to absorb and memorize for a test. Now I understand its full implication for me as a gardener, a consumer, a wife, a mother, a student...
Looking at the picture of SAM and me in my last post gave me an idea. Why not use time to improve the way we consume food and thereby enhance our productivity and, ultimately, appearance? I'm talkin' bloat here, right now.

Over the years, I've noticed that if I eat certain foods at certain times of the day, my digestive system strongly objects. Ahem! I could clear a room in five seconds, if you know what I mean. I didn't understand the correlation between time and food. Now I do.

According to Marcella Vonn Harting's book "Yes, No, Maybe" Chronobiotic Nutrition, instead of dieting, we should be concerned with "being on time in time all the time" and "celebrate eating foods at precise times of day for specific health results." Our body processes, as in every living thing, are governed by circadian rhythms. Light and darkness affect us mentally, physically, and behaviorally. They also affect the things that grow that we consume: plants and animals. The sun and the moon, solar and lunar effects, somehow tell our bodies when to produce certain enzymes, hormones, and proteins that keep us going, strong or not, depending on what and, most importantly, when we ingest.

I'm about a third of the way through the book and just started following the dietary recommendations at the beginning of this week, so it's too early to tell if things are changing for the better. And this week is a strange one in the scheme of things. The last few days' schedule are a little mixed up. Ordinarily, we would eat "Tree" things like tree fruits and nuts first thing in the morning; "Shrub" things like veggies, vine fruits, meat protein, and dairy products for lunch; and "Root" items like carrots, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, seafood, and eggs for dinner. The first few days before the full moon and the first few days after it mix things up. Right now we're supposed to be eating "Roots" in the morning. Okay, eggs and potatoes seem like good breakfast items but shrimp, carrots, and onions? SAM is not entirely on board with this idea. He's a little concerned about the onions I added to the mix this morning. They're somewhat of a deterrent to social interaction, especially at the office. 


Crystallized Ginger
 Before he headed out the door with his lunch of an apple, pear, assorted nuts, and shaved coconut, I handed him a small bag of these homemade goodies: Crystallized ginger slices. Guaranteed to freshen breath and aid digestion but for optimal results probably best consumed before 11:30 a.m. They're in the root category, after all.

SAM's fluorite octahedron



Now if only rocks like this octahedron were part of the plan, SAM the geologist would be grateful for my efforts to improve our nutrition. Nah, they're too pretty and, according to SAM, valuable to eat.