Eat the View: Part 2

Almost a month ago I posted a video called “This Lawn is Your Lawn”. The video is about the initiative to have the front lawn of the White House be partially converted to a vegetable garden to fill the first kitchen. The movement has been dubbed Victory Garden 2.0 after Eleanor Roosevelt’s WWII era Victory Garden at the White House. I think this is a magnificent idea, and one that Obama should take to heart when he has a moment. I really do believe that if he takes the lead it could have a profound impact on our country in ways we may not be able to calculate. We can’t exactly expect the leader of the free world to focus on something that we find important – then it comes back to us to stand up to do it ourselves.

Around the time that I posted that video Hubby and I had dinner with the Married Couple Collective (MCC) and found that many of us felt the same way about growing our own produce to the extent that we can. The other two wives and I chatted and found that they already had a plan laid out, if not planting beds already built, so they were already ready for planting when the time comes this year. Hubby and I on the other hand, don’t have much in the yard.

When we moved in to this house last year there wasn’t much in the yard but grass and a tree in the back. Last Spring/Summer my main goal was to beautify. We planted three rose bushes, cleaned out some weeds, purchased a lawn mower, and this fall I planted some bulbs. The plan for this season: build planter boxes and grow some veggies for ourselves. The great thing about this plan and the conversation with the MCC, is a built in growing community. We’ve worked out a seed-share program between the three couples to share the packets of seeds that we order.

Really it’s not much. It is just a little bit to provide for me and Hubby, perhaps even share any over abundance I have with others – but my reduced demand in the grocery store might just translate to something larger than I can conceive. I like that.

Eat the View

This Lawn is Your Lawn from roger doiron on Vimeo.

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The Results Are In!

Last night after the election results came in overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, I couldn’t help but be excited. This is the first election since I have been eligible to vote where the man I chose to go to office won – and not just by a little bit. I will be honest, as I have no reason to do otherwise; I’m not really all that in to politics. I believe it my right and duty as an American Woman to vote. As I was telling my coworker, FlatEarth, 90% of the time I don’t really care what’s going on in Washington DC and will generally avoid political topics mostly because I don’t know enough to hold up an intelligent end of the conversation. But I digress.

I had an overwhelming sense of dread going in to Election Day yesterday. I think my sense of optimism was murdered by the previous presidential election when the bushman was put back in office for a second term. Being that I’m not really politically minded, I hadn’t been checking the opinion polls, I hadn’t been reading up on the details and checking political blogs to see what others were thinking I just went in to the day hopeful that our country would go the direction it needed to go.

I was diligently working on my NaNoWriMo novel, trying my damndest to ignore the poles and just get the thing done. I didn’t expect that they would have the results as quickly as they did. I had gotten to 500 words of my 1700 words and clicked over to the NBC website to check the standing at the polls. At that moment the website reloaded to show that Obama was over the 270 electoral votes needed to win and I couldn’t help but scream: “Holy crap!” I ran out to the family room and turned on the TV and sat down in time for them to repeat what I had just seen come over the internet. To say I was elated would be a mild description of my emotions of the moment. I continued to watch completely ignoring anything else that needed to be done while Hubby watched his Twitter feed repeating the funny comments to me.

Several things strike me about the McCain rally/ concession speech versus the Obama rally / acceptance speech and I think that the things that stood out to me are emblematic of the type of person or leader that each would be. McCain’s rally was in a private ballroom in Arizona with an invitation only crowd, this screams exclusiveness to me. Obama’s Rally was in an open air park in Chicago – anyone and everyone could have shown up, this speaks to an open willingness to be comprehensive in everything that he does. As for their speeches, both were eloquent, but the really telling thing to me was the crowd’s response when one would mention the other’s name. While McCain’s concession speech was gracious and supportive of Obama his crowd was considerably less so, booing whenever Obama’s name was mentioned and at one point chanting “We want John” while he was speaking. I can understand their disappointment with the loss of their chosen candidate and perhaps meant this as a way to cheer him up, but in my opinion those tactics are childish. The attitude was of course more celebratory during Obama’s speech but everyone in the thousands gathered was respectful and listened quietly and even cheered once or twice when he mentioned McCain. I believe they saying goes: “you are judged by the company you keep.”

I look forward to President-Elect Obama taking office on January 20, 2009.

Democratic Debacle

Things are getting pretty heated in the Democratic race for the presidency. Everyone knows that. Unless, of course, you have been living in a subterranean cave on a tiny island with no outside contact. The thing that strikes me the most is that everyone I have talked to about it is firmly planted on one candidate or the other, no one seems to be waffling like me, and with the Oregon primary in two weeks and it quickly gaining more importance than it’s ever had before, I really feel as if I should set down an official decision for myself.

To be honest, previously when asked I would sheepishly reply that I was a Hillary supporter, but that decision on my part was almost completely superficial. My opinion was based on three things: 1) she is a woman, and hey so am I! 2) If her presidency is anything like Bill’s was it would put us back into a good place as a country (for a moment let’s ignore the whole infidelity thing), it would take us out of the recession in the very least. 3) To be so strong as to cope with Bill’s infidelity under such a fine microscope and keep her head about her, I would have no qualms about her handling the country’s crises in a similar calm and direct fashion. I realize that these things are all opinion and not fact based on my part at all, which causes me to look back at Obama. Obama’s whole platform is change. I think everyone agrees that is what this country needs. He seems to be a strong, even tempered person with strong ethics. But where do we go from there.

Ultimately what it comes down to is: I am an uninformed voter, and it’s my own fault for being that way. What I really want is to know their stance on the issues I care about and what is most important to them. Yeah they can sit there and blabber about education, the environment, and what they will do about the cost of gas, but if really those are all just campaign promises unless they personally feel strongly about it then IT WILL GET DONE. I am currently trying to read through the issues pages on each of the candidates web sites. Hillary’s issues page seems to be arranged in a way that shows what is important to her, Obama’s is in alphabetical order.

I am trying to avoid being influenced by anyone else’s personal opinion and therefore avoiding other political websites for the moment, but we shall see when the time comes.