I have a friend who does "Movie Mondays" on her blog, and since I saw two movies (planned three, missed one because I got out of work too late) I thought about writing about it, then I realized I did some more interesting things this weekend, so here it is. A post without an agenda, for the most part. And not many pictures!
The movie I missed was "The General," which was being shown with piano accompaniment. I love classic movies, I like silent films, and it's fun to see them with live music. I've gone to "Metropolis" at Real Art Ways twice, where they have The Alloy Orchestra offering music and it's fascinating and fun.
Saturday started out semi-routine with physical therapy (usually I do yoga, but not until the knee improves) and then my Torah class, after which I went to Cinema Classics for "Strangers on a Train." I hadn't seen it before and it was typical fast-moving, tense Hitchcock. We all liked it. I couldn't go for lunch with the others afterwards because I had to get to the office and see how things were going on the deal we're trying to close - and which should at this stage be in proofreading, but of course, it's not........
Saturday night I went to SWAN DAY CT, which is a celebration of women artists. It was great, crowded, noisy, supportive.........I bought some jewelry, clothes, and artwork. I'm taking the picture to my office, it's bright and will add some colour to the dull walls. A friend was showing her photography and I told her I want to buy two prints for my office also. She didn't believe me, it's the first time she's shown her work, but I'm serious!
Sunday morning, I slept in. :) Then I worked in my stash storage, having decided it was high time to have another round of sales on eBay. Every time I mention this I get a suggestion from someone that I should use space bags and other things for added storage, but my idea is to weed out items that I am very sure I will not use, and send them to people who want to use them.
Another movie followed: "Jews and Baseball." OK, I am a baseball nut. I freely admit it! I played as a kid (who didn't?) and follow my beloved Cubbies through everything. They had two cinemas showing the movie (it's part of a film festival) and both were PACKED. Fun!
Afterwards, home, and back on the computer for work. Watched some of my usual Sunday night TV shows - "Chopped All-Stars" especially. Was very happy that the hot Aarón Sánchez won his round. But I am torn between him and Nate Appleman for the ultimate winner. I'll have to tune in next week - hopefully I'll be back in time from the foodie adventure my friend Judy has scheduled.
28 March 2011
27 March 2011
A Day with Tibetan Monks
About a month ago, a local church hosted a group of monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India. The monks, exiled from Tibet, are on a tour to help raise funds for the monastery by sharing information about their faith and Tibetan culture and traditions. I visited when a friend's art gallery hosted the monks in the past, where they created one of their spectacular mandalas. On this tour, the monks did that at some locations, but at the church they answered questions and held workshops where we could make prayer flags, create our own mandala designs, and otherwise gain a deeper understanding of their faith. The afternoon began with a soup lunch that was very good. The same dough was used to make dumplings in the soup and rolls on the side. The monks cooked it for us as part of their ministry. Then we had opening ceremony and Q&A, while the main room was set up for projects. When we went back, we could l
earn how to use the tools to make sand mandalas: You scoop sand into the metal cones and rub one against another to control the flow. While some of the designs we tried were traditional, we mostly went free-form. This is the part of a mandala that I made, with people working on their designs in other areas:
earn how to use the tools to make sand mandalas: You scoop sand into the metal cones and rub one against another to control the flow. While some of the designs we tried were traditional, we mostly went free-form. This is the part of a mandala that I made, with people working on their designs in other areas: 
These mandalas are on very non-traditional brown paper, so to make the cleanup easier when it is time to return the sand to the earth. Usually they put it into a moving body of water, but there was no stream or river near enough to the church. You'll see the ceremony further down.
We also made prayer flags that were strung around the room. The monks would help us with designs and names if we asked, but most people did free-form ones.
The lady in white was one of the organizers of the event. These are mine:
You could buy a string of preprinted prayer flags and many other items, such as bags (of course I did!) and prayer beads. If you bought beads, the head monk would bless them and you:
At the end of the afternoon, we danced (something a local group does, begun in the 1960's, and not a Tibetan Buddism activity, but the monks were very nice about participating) and then the monks conducted a thank-you ceremony and the closing prayers:
They swept up the sand and we followed them outside where they prayed that the energy in the sand would help to heal the world:
I found a couple other writeups of the day, including one that has me in the background of one of his photos.
23 March 2011
Guest Blogger says it all
I saw a guest blogger post on the website of our major local newspaper that focuses on the plight of children in one state, but many of the facts would apply to other states where I've lived. Children who do not get enough food not only can't grow properly, but their brains don't develop correctly, they can't focus in school or study at home, and they pretty much start out with losses that can't be recovered later. Summer is coming, and that's when many families face the most strain on their food budgets as the children no longer get free meals at school and the family has to provide all the food a child eats in a day. Last summer, the number of persons coming to the mobile food truck at which I assist (it's coming around tomorrow) every four week tripled over what we see in the winter. Not just doubled - TRIPLED.
Programs are available. We have to make sure they stay available, are fully-funded, that the families know about them, and that the kids get the food. In a country like ours, there's no reason for children to go hungry.
Edited to add: One such program has been launched in my state. Does your state do something similar? Let me know, I'm interested to see what the country is doing to prevent childhood food insecurity, hunger, and related problems.
Programs are available. We have to make sure they stay available, are fully-funded, that the families know about them, and that the kids get the food. In a country like ours, there's no reason for children to go hungry.
Edited to add: One such program has been launched in my state. Does your state do something similar? Let me know, I'm interested to see what the country is doing to prevent childhood food insecurity, hunger, and related problems.
18 March 2011
I learned from another post that the items I had made were not sent to Afghanistan as intended, and probably were thrown away. So disappointing! Especially because I took a lot of time away from a family event to try to finish before the deadline. Apparently a totally sleeveless vest is OK, and long-sleeved sweaters, but not the short-sleeved sweater on the top left. Well, it was all the yarn I had and I could not find any more in those colours. Next time, I'll stop at vest and throw away the rest of the yarn or donate it someplace, and not waste my time with knitting.
Sorry, I shouldn't sound so nasty, I know. But when you knit for a charity, and put hard work and a lot of money into something, especially shipping it to them, and then they publicly post that your items are worthless, well - I am annoyed! I offered to send them money to retrieve my items, but since they are probably already thrown away it will likely get ignored.
Sorry, I shouldn't sound so nasty, I know. But when you knit for a charity, and put hard work and a lot of money into something, especially shipping it to them, and then they publicly post that your items are worthless, well - I am annoyed! I offered to send them money to retrieve my items, but since they are probably already thrown away it will likely get ignored.
Anyway, here is the message I posted on the blog for the charity, a note I have now deleted:
These were mailed from a relative's house, I was visiting as I finished the final sweater. I believe they made the last shipment, based upon when the postcard was returned to me. My relative had to send the picture because I didn't have my camera.
Top Left: Lite Lopi, doubled. This sweater has short sleeves because it's all the yarn I had. This had been in my stash for a while to make a fulled ("felted") bag but I thought this is a better use. It was going to be just a vest until I finished with one ball of each (I'd started with three of each colour) left over, so I decided to do as much of a sleeve as I could. I know that full-length sleeves are requested, so I thought of this as an extended vest.
Top Right: This was my UFO vest of alpaca-wool yarn, to which I added alpaca sleeves and neck ribbing. I happened to have in stash a few balls of a solid that worked very well with the pastels in the original yarn, and since Ann kept asking for sweaters, I was glad to oblige. It also gave me the opportunity to try a top-down set-in sleeve, and I think they came out OK.
Bottom Left: Red "whatever" sweater. Mostly using up yarns. The cuffs and collar are a brown-red handspun, the rest is this and that of commercial wool yarns such as Muskoska.
Bottom Right: A yarn called "Limbo," knitted double. It is 100% superwash wool. I used the Steppe sweater pattern, with the added collar. I still have a lot of this yarn left, so you will see it in the next campaign as well.
The socks in the middle are Red Heart's Heart & Sole in "Mellow." This is a proper sock yarn in wool and nylon, and I knitted double-stranded for speed.
SNAP and Special Diets
Earlier this week, my friend Rebecca mentioned to me that she could not imagine living on $21 per week because of her family's special dietary needs. "Wheat and dairy are cheap," she pointed out, but both will make members of her family quiet ill. "I don't think the family would agree to live on rice and beans." I told Rebecca that I have been working on a post about this topic, and here it is.
I knew going into the SNAP Challenge that I am lucky because I can, and will, eat almost anything. I have done various diets for various reasons over time: vegetarian, low/no dairy, gluten-free vegan, and so on. Now I seem to be happiest, and healthies, as an omnivore. Having been on the more limited diets, I know what an additional cost it is to buy rice or potato noodles, grain- or nut-based milks (if you're not allergic to nuts also), and so on. As Rebecca said, you can live on rice and beans and potatoes only so much - meat is hard to come by on the SNAP allowance.
I am also reminded of this because Passover is coming, and there are racks at the grocery filled with the special foods that Jewish people must eat during this holiday. Kosher foods are, as a rule, not cheap, and Kosher-for-Passover foods are even more expensive. Many places have a kosher food pantry, but getting donations before the holiday is probably tricky.
For people who require a special diet just to survive, there are few options. Food banks that cater to special diets are very rare. There is information that you can deduct the difference between what special-diet foods cost, and what the regular equivalent would be, but you still have to buy the food in the first place. I have read articles where a parent tells the writer that they have to make a decision whether to buy the food for one person who cannot eat gluten or dairy or whatever, or buy food for the whole family and the substance-intolerant person has to suffer. Since some of these problems can lead to more than just pain and illness, but can affect brain function and major organs, it's not a simple problem. It's not like telling a fussy kid to eat around the peas. If all you can afford to serve is macaroni and cheese, and you have someone who can't eat the macaroni, or the cheese - that person has no meal.
That person, or that family, may indeed be facing a life of nothing but rice and beans. Yes, people in some countries live on that - but with a bit of vegetable also, or some meat to season it. As I've been documenting, on the SNAP allowance it's hard to afford much of either vegetables or meat. I can sign up for a CSA at the equivalent of about $8 per person per week - but I need the money to pay upfront for the season, and CSAs don't accept SNAP. During the summer, Foodshare may have coupons to hand out that can be used at certain farmer's markers, which encourage people to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. But that is only in the summer, and depends upon whether a very generous (and much appreciated!) grant is renewed. Otherwise, Foodshare has only what is donated in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables, for handing out at the mobile food trucks. You never know what it will be.
So much of the time, a person who cannot eat certain foods, or who has people in the family who cannot eat those foods, has an additional challenge. A regular box of wheat-based pasta may be $1.00 on sale, or even 88 cents, but buying rice-based pasta can cost $3-4 per box. A bag of wheat flour costs $1.89, a bag half as big of gluten-free baking mix runs $4-5 each. Buying the bread can cost 99 cents if you are lucky, more often $1.88-2.99 a loaf - and gluten-free bread can cost twice as much. Not everybody is willing to go without bread - children often want to have a sandwich in their lunch at school, not a cold rice dish.
So, something else to consider. There isn't an easy answer, I know, except for food pantries that specialize in gluten-free or other special-diet foods. Where these don't exist, people need other means to get the food that will keep their family members healthy and fed. It's not just the dearth of fruit or vegetables that I have experienced this week. For some people, the very food that other people can easily eat will itself make them sick. And this isn't included in the SNAP calculation, nor the additional cost of the food that they can safely eat.
I knew going into the SNAP Challenge that I am lucky because I can, and will, eat almost anything. I have done various diets for various reasons over time: vegetarian, low/no dairy, gluten-free vegan, and so on. Now I seem to be happiest, and healthies, as an omnivore. Having been on the more limited diets, I know what an additional cost it is to buy rice or potato noodles, grain- or nut-based milks (if you're not allergic to nuts also), and so on. As Rebecca said, you can live on rice and beans and potatoes only so much - meat is hard to come by on the SNAP allowance.
I am also reminded of this because Passover is coming, and there are racks at the grocery filled with the special foods that Jewish people must eat during this holiday. Kosher foods are, as a rule, not cheap, and Kosher-for-Passover foods are even more expensive. Many places have a kosher food pantry, but getting donations before the holiday is probably tricky.
For people who require a special diet just to survive, there are few options. Food banks that cater to special diets are very rare. There is information that you can deduct the difference between what special-diet foods cost, and what the regular equivalent would be, but you still have to buy the food in the first place. I have read articles where a parent tells the writer that they have to make a decision whether to buy the food for one person who cannot eat gluten or dairy or whatever, or buy food for the whole family and the substance-intolerant person has to suffer. Since some of these problems can lead to more than just pain and illness, but can affect brain function and major organs, it's not a simple problem. It's not like telling a fussy kid to eat around the peas. If all you can afford to serve is macaroni and cheese, and you have someone who can't eat the macaroni, or the cheese - that person has no meal.
That person, or that family, may indeed be facing a life of nothing but rice and beans. Yes, people in some countries live on that - but with a bit of vegetable also, or some meat to season it. As I've been documenting, on the SNAP allowance it's hard to afford much of either vegetables or meat. I can sign up for a CSA at the equivalent of about $8 per person per week - but I need the money to pay upfront for the season, and CSAs don't accept SNAP. During the summer, Foodshare may have coupons to hand out that can be used at certain farmer's markers, which encourage people to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. But that is only in the summer, and depends upon whether a very generous (and much appreciated!) grant is renewed. Otherwise, Foodshare has only what is donated in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables, for handing out at the mobile food trucks. You never know what it will be.
So much of the time, a person who cannot eat certain foods, or who has people in the family who cannot eat those foods, has an additional challenge. A regular box of wheat-based pasta may be $1.00 on sale, or even 88 cents, but buying rice-based pasta can cost $3-4 per box. A bag of wheat flour costs $1.89, a bag half as big of gluten-free baking mix runs $4-5 each. Buying the bread can cost 99 cents if you are lucky, more often $1.88-2.99 a loaf - and gluten-free bread can cost twice as much. Not everybody is willing to go without bread - children often want to have a sandwich in their lunch at school, not a cold rice dish.
So, something else to consider. There isn't an easy answer, I know, except for food pantries that specialize in gluten-free or other special-diet foods. Where these don't exist, people need other means to get the food that will keep their family members healthy and fed. It's not just the dearth of fruit or vegetables that I have experienced this week. For some people, the very food that other people can easily eat will itself make them sick. And this isn't included in the SNAP calculation, nor the additional cost of the food that they can safely eat.
17 March 2011
Is the SNAP Challenge Condescending?
I was working on this post, and wanted to think about it over night. Then one of my daily emails came with this THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The topic of this post was suggested by a discussion I had last night. I was at my rabbi's birthday party, and met another person who is in the SNAP Challenge, and we were discussing whether we could partake of the pizza and ice-cream. As I've posted previously, one of the rules is that you can only accept free food if it's something available to the community. Technically, events such as this are open to the community, although realistically it's just the congregational community. (A different thing would be our post-services oneg. At my father's church, homeless persons often turn up on Sundays, more for the coffee hour treats than for the spiritual uplift.) My decision was no; his was that since it was his first day on the challenge, and since he hadn't bought his full pantry he wasn't planning to do it for a week all at once, he was going to have some pizza.
Then the rabbi came by and urged us to eat. The other participant explained that we're doing the SNAP Challenge, and apparently it's a sore point with our rabbi. He said he doesn't agree with Rabbi Berman, who hosts the event, because my rabbi feels that we should be doing things to help others, not to artificially deprive ourselves and possibly (in his view) harm our health. I pointed out the element that we were supposed to calculate the difference between what we would normally spend (my delta being roughly $2.5-4 per day, if I cook at home, more if I eat out) and donate that difference to Foodshare, Hands on Hartford, or the MANNA Food Pantry. My rabbi is more OK with this idea, but pointed out that people don't need to do the SNAP Challenge for it, you can just do the math and write a cheque.
The other participant noted that there had been a comment at the kick-off dinner that the SNAP Challenge is condescending. The person who said this pointed out that this is a fake exercise, for people who can stop at any time or simply reach into their pantries for more. The other participant said he thought it would be increasing empathy for persons who are food-challenged, but the speaker said that pretending to be poor is not kind. My rabbi agreed - he believes in getting out and helping people. His opinion is that if the SNAP Challenge were really to get food into the hands of the hungry, it would be a worthwhile exercise. But simply to eat on a minimal amount of money for a week is not beneficial to the partipant or to the poor.
So, point of discussion: Is something like this condescending? I am looking at it as an educational exercise for those who aren't doing it, to show exactly how one's meals are affected by such restrictions. It's more than just having to eat rice and lentils and beans and canned corn, it's also the extra time cooking, the repetition, and sometimes wondering if it's worth the effort to try and cook something different or special just to fight against the monotony of the severely limited pantry. It's recognizing that if I had not been lucky with finding things on sale, I would not have as extensive a pantry as I do. (The other participant commented that he was having trouble finding milk in a size and cost to fit the budget, and that he was contemplating eating a lot of carrots and tuna this week because they were on sale.) Increasing food costs, as I noted yesterday, also affect what one can buy. Lack of time can push me into quick, unhealthy meals (especially grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches), although I try to cook with an eye towards healthful contents of the meals as well as taste. As I'm coming to the end of my week's pantry, this is getting trickier.
I'll be interested to read your comments.
"Think of the poorest person you have ever seen and ask if your next act will be of any use to him."
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
The topic of this post was suggested by a discussion I had last night. I was at my rabbi's birthday party, and met another person who is in the SNAP Challenge, and we were discussing whether we could partake of the pizza and ice-cream. As I've posted previously, one of the rules is that you can only accept free food if it's something available to the community. Technically, events such as this are open to the community, although realistically it's just the congregational community. (A different thing would be our post-services oneg. At my father's church, homeless persons often turn up on Sundays, more for the coffee hour treats than for the spiritual uplift.) My decision was no; his was that since it was his first day on the challenge, and since he hadn't bought his full pantry he wasn't planning to do it for a week all at once, he was going to have some pizza.
Then the rabbi came by and urged us to eat. The other participant explained that we're doing the SNAP Challenge, and apparently it's a sore point with our rabbi. He said he doesn't agree with Rabbi Berman, who hosts the event, because my rabbi feels that we should be doing things to help others, not to artificially deprive ourselves and possibly (in his view) harm our health. I pointed out the element that we were supposed to calculate the difference between what we would normally spend (my delta being roughly $2.5-4 per day, if I cook at home, more if I eat out) and donate that difference to Foodshare, Hands on Hartford, or the MANNA Food Pantry. My rabbi is more OK with this idea, but pointed out that people don't need to do the SNAP Challenge for it, you can just do the math and write a cheque.
The other participant noted that there had been a comment at the kick-off dinner that the SNAP Challenge is condescending. The person who said this pointed out that this is a fake exercise, for people who can stop at any time or simply reach into their pantries for more. The other participant said he thought it would be increasing empathy for persons who are food-challenged, but the speaker said that pretending to be poor is not kind. My rabbi agreed - he believes in getting out and helping people. His opinion is that if the SNAP Challenge were really to get food into the hands of the hungry, it would be a worthwhile exercise. But simply to eat on a minimal amount of money for a week is not beneficial to the partipant or to the poor.
So, point of discussion: Is something like this condescending? I am looking at it as an educational exercise for those who aren't doing it, to show exactly how one's meals are affected by such restrictions. It's more than just having to eat rice and lentils and beans and canned corn, it's also the extra time cooking, the repetition, and sometimes wondering if it's worth the effort to try and cook something different or special just to fight against the monotony of the severely limited pantry. It's recognizing that if I had not been lucky with finding things on sale, I would not have as extensive a pantry as I do. (The other participant commented that he was having trouble finding milk in a size and cost to fit the budget, and that he was contemplating eating a lot of carrots and tuna this week because they were on sale.) Increasing food costs, as I noted yesterday, also affect what one can buy. Lack of time can push me into quick, unhealthy meals (especially grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches), although I try to cook with an eye towards healthful contents of the meals as well as taste. As I'm coming to the end of my week's pantry, this is getting trickier.
I'll be interested to read your comments.
16 March 2011
The rising price of food
I had a different post in draft for today - two, in fact - then I saw a link to an article that noted we're seeing the "biggest jump in food costs in more than 36 years." I found out about the article from a link that Foodshare posted; they are the largest food pantry system here. I've already noted how I vounteer at one of their mobile distribution trucks every four weeks.
This steep rise in food prices affects people in two ways. One, it is harder for them to afford to buy food, whether with money or SNAP or WIC or whatever they manage. Second, it is harder for food pantries to get the food they need, because donations drop, and when they need to buy food the money doesn't stretch as far.
One person, posting on a friend's comment about the rising cost of food, suggested that people plant gardens. That works for some, not for all. Not everybody has space they can garden. There are programs that encourage gardening in the city, by children and to donate the crops to food pantries. Some towns rent space to people who want to garden and can't do it near their home - maybe they live in apartments, or condos, and have no yard. This should help, if people can do it, because the steepest rise in costs was for vegetables.
But if all food gets more expensive, and less accessible to the people who need it, what then? We need to do what we can, whether it's donate to a local food pantry, help distribute food, or prepare and serve meals at a soup kitchen. But we also need our legislators to understand how difficult it can be to provide nourishing, well-balanced food to people on $3 a day in the USA.
I've had some people ask whether my health will be in danger if I continue with the limited pantry I have. Maybe over time, although for now I seem to be doing OK. I definitely crave fruit in any form - the two apples a day are nothing like my usual ration. I still take my vitamins, and I am monitoring myself for any signs of trouble. But if you're worried about me eating this menu for a week - think of the people who have to eat on $3, or less, a day for months. It's no surprise that low-income persons have a higher rate of illness than other income groups. And it should be no surprise that this has been reported for years.
I know that I alone can't solve the problem. But I do what I can to help. Eating on $3 a day may not seem like a great contribution to fight hunger - but donating the difference between my $3 a day this week, and what I usually spend on food in a week, can help.
This steep rise in food prices affects people in two ways. One, it is harder for them to afford to buy food, whether with money or SNAP or WIC or whatever they manage. Second, it is harder for food pantries to get the food they need, because donations drop, and when they need to buy food the money doesn't stretch as far.
One person, posting on a friend's comment about the rising cost of food, suggested that people plant gardens. That works for some, not for all. Not everybody has space they can garden. There are programs that encourage gardening in the city, by children and to donate the crops to food pantries. Some towns rent space to people who want to garden and can't do it near their home - maybe they live in apartments, or condos, and have no yard. This should help, if people can do it, because the steepest rise in costs was for vegetables.
But if all food gets more expensive, and less accessible to the people who need it, what then? We need to do what we can, whether it's donate to a local food pantry, help distribute food, or prepare and serve meals at a soup kitchen. But we also need our legislators to understand how difficult it can be to provide nourishing, well-balanced food to people on $3 a day in the USA.
I've had some people ask whether my health will be in danger if I continue with the limited pantry I have. Maybe over time, although for now I seem to be doing OK. I definitely crave fruit in any form - the two apples a day are nothing like my usual ration. I still take my vitamins, and I am monitoring myself for any signs of trouble. But if you're worried about me eating this menu for a week - think of the people who have to eat on $3, or less, a day for months. It's no surprise that low-income persons have a higher rate of illness than other income groups. And it should be no surprise that this has been reported for years.
I know that I alone can't solve the problem. But I do what I can to help. Eating on $3 a day may not seem like a great contribution to fight hunger - but donating the difference between my $3 a day this week, and what I usually spend on food in a week, can help.