Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I Am Quite Aware That I Am Not A Superior Being

My god, it is beautiful today. The sun is creeping into all the spaces it can find, puddling and painting everything with gold. And it is cold. We're about to run out of gas and the gas guy is supposed to come this morning and I surely hope he does. I think so often about what it must have been like to live in this house back when it was built over a hundred and fifty years ago and how it must have been almost a full-time job in the winter, keeping the fires going and I wonder who chopped all that wood. There were six fireplaces, SIX! and that's not counting whatever they used in the kitchen which was detached from the house. And where was the outhouse and the chicken coop and the pig pen? Surely there was a pig pen. And a smoke house? And a garden? There must have been.
We are so lazy now, we humans of the modern world. We get in our autos and drive to the grocery and buy our vegetables, our pork, our fruit, our breads, our grains, our coffee. An entire planet's worth of agriculture and food production right there on the shelves for us to buy.
I was standing in the grocery store yesterday trying to decide what sort of tortillas to buy to make my chicken enchiladas and I almost broke down. There must have been at least three dozen different kinds of tortillas. The small corn ones, the large flour ones. The low-carb, high-fiber ones. Can those even be called tortillas? Just because they are round and flat doesn't make them anything that an actual Mexican would recognize as a tortilla.
I think.
Our over-abundance of food and the ease with which we can acquire it is such a blessing and also, we must admit, a curse. Obesity and diabetes were probably NOT a problem when it was a life-long struggle to consume a few more calories than were expended in producing and cooking the food we ate. And let us not forget the hauling of water. I lived in a house once with no running water and had to pump the water we used from a hand pump out back and believe me- I will never forget it. How did people do it? We like to thing we're so advanced now with our technology and our sciences and our every damn thing and we wouldn't last a fucking month if we couldn't get to the grocery store, if we didn't have electricity. I think a Neanderthal could learn to use an iPad a hell of a lot quicker than I could figure out how to feed myself if I were thrown back into the world the Neanderthal lived in. Or, well, even the world the people lived in who built this house.


All right. That's enough useless ruminating. I have to take my dogs to the groomer and how freaking ridiculous is that? These dogs will never die. Never. I will keel over and die myself and they will come and sniff my corpse and then probably pee on it. Then they'll go curl up and scratch their fleas.
And who will take them to the groomer then, I ask you?
Haha!

Good morning from Lloyd. It is a beautiful day. I drink the rest of my smoothie from a glass. It has five kinds of fruit and yogurt in it. After I take the dogs, I need to take a walk because I did nothing to grow that fruit or harvest it and I did not milk a cow or a goat to make the yogurt and my body was constructed to do those things or something like them and quite honestly, it needs the physical activity more than it needs the fruit. And then I will take a shower in hot water which runs miraculously through pipes and appears at the twist of a wrist.
And I will not take that for granted.

Love...Ms. Moon

14 comments:

  1. Good morning. You're right. It's good to think about these things sometimes. Sometimes at the gym I think how silly it is that we have this big building that we all pay to exercise in, doing useless movement on these machines, because all our other body work (tending to animals, garden, survival, etc...)that would have a point and meaning has been taken care of for us. And now if we do those things, it's a choice, just a hobby.

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  2. I have that odd gratitude for running water, clean, hot or cold on demand almost every day. And I've been making fruit smoothies for my daughter daily, and I've been sneaking sweet potatoes in them because she'd never drink them if she knew. Who can't like sweet potatoes? The go very well with peach and mango!

    I'm feeling so much older than I want to, and I feel like I should be depressed, but the sun is shining (even though it's ridiculously cold - 15 degrees and windy as hell) and my prescription vitamin D doses seem to be keeping my spirit above water. It's the only thing I can point to that's different, so I'm going with it.

    Thanks for all the updates, the smiles, the laughs and the wonder this week. I've meant to comment so many times but words are escaping me lately. I'm wallowing in the miracle of being ok, I guess and so glad you are too.

    Those dogs wouldn't pee on your corpse, they'd curl up next to you and die right there, I'm sure.
    xo

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  3. The world IS getting dumber. It's too sad to think about it.

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  4. god, we used to have to work for things. Now we needs gyms and work out videos so we can keep eating more and more crap we don't need to be eating. I wonder if that's why people are so obsessed with the apocalypse lately? The idea that if we had to start completely over who would survive and who simply couldn't. Crazy.

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  5. I love that comment about the Neanderthals and the iPads. So true. And it reminded me of the old, old documentary about the Eskimo -- I can't remember his name -- and how enthralled he was when the European explorers brought him a phonograph and he listened to the music.

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  6. They will pee on your cremains, and turn them into crudmains.

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  7. I think the Eskimo documentary mentioned above was Nanook of the North. We watched it in 6th grade in the mid '60's.

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  8. Just yesterday I was thinking about how my great (x4) grandfather lost his sight in a mining accident. After he opened a grocery store and taught his seeing eye dog to lead the horse & cart around town so he could deliver the groceries. His wife would hire the natives to take her by canoe, a journey of 225 Km to get supplies. When the business went bankrupt (they kept giving away food) he started a farm and built himself different tools so he could farm as a blind man. They then went on to have 18(!) children. This week I hurt myself at work moving a patient and I spend a whole day in bed. Pathetic. rerals

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  9. oops, that rerals was the word verification!

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  10. Bethany- Well, you know, the hippies really did try out the back-to-the land thing. The problems were many. We had few real mentors and also, we only got bits and pieces of the whole puzzle right. But I think we learned a few things and if we have gardening hobbies and backyard chicken hobbies and so forth now, it's good. Ain't nothing wrong with it. We live in this world. I just doubt I could live in that other one. Successfully, anyway.

    Mel- Anytime you comment is a good time. Thank you. Your comments are always well-thought out and I appreciate them.
    Sweet potatoes in smoothies is a great idea! And Vitamin D is important, I do believe that. Again, our bodies were constructed to spend more time outside than we ever dream of doing now. Mostly.
    But trust me on the dog thing. I know my dogs.

    heartinhand- Yeah. We may USE technology but we sure don't know how to make it, most of us. I couldn't build a fire without matches or a lighter. I doubt I could make a decent wheel!

    Rachel- That is a really insightful idea- that we fear the apocalypse because no, we wouldn't know how to survive. Wow. New perspective. Thanks.

    Elizabeth- Did they give him small pox too? Haha! Just kidding. (Not really.)

    Jo- You are right!

    Anonymous- I bet I watched it too. Jeez.

    Birdie- Yeah. People used to do what they had to to survive, I guess. But, uh? Eighteen children? There was a whole lot of "doing" going on there.

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  11. Yes, we are on a strange and juxtaposed trajectory... that is no lie.

    Glad it was sunny.
    xo

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  12. How old are these dogs? I am picturing a couple of decrepit curs, but that's probably not what they look like at all.

    I've often thought that if society collapsed and I really had to feed myself, I would be in serious, serious trouble.

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  13. We are a nation of people who have little concept on how to care for ourselves or do practical things. Most would rather hire someone rather than do household chores. I am guilty of that but at least I know how to split logs, cut grass, change oil, and work a chainsaw, as well as fish.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.