Tattoo U

So, yesterday I did something I've been meaning to do for a long time: I got a tattoo.

Here is the finished tattoo, wrapped in saran wrap.

Some people who know me a little might think this is odd, but people who know me well won't be surprised. For about ten years, I've known the motif I wanted for my tattoo, I simply never made time to do it. I've been taking a class about making your dreams a reality (click the Mondo Beyondo button to the right if you want to know more) so I decided that it was time to get inked.

For a design, I wanted a Pisces symbol formed by two catfish. Why?

Pisces: I was born under the sign of Pisces, and while I don't believe in astrology, I have always felt a deep affinity for my sign. Pisces are known as "old souls" -- creative, empathetic, fluid, and loving shoes. Well, that has to do with the fact that the foot is the body part related to the Pisces.

Catfish: Obviously, I'm known by the name Catfish by many. I was given the name during my summer camp-counseling days, and it's become a part of my identity. The catfish is an amazing animal, perfectly adapted to the many environments in which it can be found. Often thought of as an ugly bottom-dweller, the catfish is actually a triumph of evolution. There are walking catfish that can walk from puddle to puddle when water dries up; electric catfish that zap their food with 350 volts; giant catfish in the Mekong River which are revered by the Lao people; and even catfish fathers who protect their young by keeping them in their mouths. The catfish reminds me of the power of flexibility in the face of difficulty.

So, knowing that I wanted to deck my skin with these symbols, my friend Sara talked to a tattoo artist who has worked with her and her husband, Jason Phillips of FTW Tattoo in Oakland. Jason worked up a drawing, which he had ready when I showed up yesterday.

I was thrilled with the drawing and excited to get started -- I really wasn't too nervous. I was prepared for the pain, which I'd had described as the level of a bee sting -- a bunch of bee stings, going on for a couple of hours. But I'm not afraid of needles. In fact, I'm sort of fascinated by them.

This is an unflattering picture of me getting the tattoo. Ironically, I was wearing my "preppy outfit." I had to hold this position for a couple of hours.

I thought the pain was quite reasonable -- in fact, it actually tickled in a couple of places.

The outline was done first, and hurt the most. We took a quick break when the outline was done. I walked around -- it felt a little like a sunburn. The hardest part was actually holding still while lying on my side.

And here's the finished piece:

Thanks to Jason and his beautiful design, and Sara for sitting with me and talking with me for a few hours while Jason worked his magic.

Reflections on Summer Odyssey 2010

My summer odyssey - 19 days of traveling the West Coast, visiting friends and family, working and playing -- is almost at an end. I am excited to get home, relax, sleep in my own bed and pet my cat. However, it has been a wonderful journey.

One of the things that has been best about this trip has been getting to spend time in nature. I make my best effort to get outdoors in Houston, but during the humid summer months I do most of my exercising indoors. The lovely weather in Portland and Northern California has allowed me many opportunities to examine the flowers, look up at the redwoods, and see a pod of dolphins jumping playfully in the ocean.

Wildflowers in Northern California -- it's pretty amazing what nature produces.

I've also enjoyed the ease with which a greener lifestyle is available in many parts of the West Coast (as someone who grew up in more rural areas of the West, I know it's certainly not available everywhere).

In Portland, my friends Caitlin and Connie, along with niece Carys, walked over to the amazing New Seasons Market in the Concordia neighborhood. I love grocery stores, and this one tops my list -- locally-owned, staffed by friendly people and offering lots of local and organic foods. We filled our small shopping list, then wandered the aisles pointing out different items and trading recipes, looking at the quirky selection of books about urban homesteading and DIY, and generally enjoying ourselves.

A VERY rainy spring resulted in profusions of flowers bursting out in Portland's yards.

Portland is known as a mecca for greenies. In fact, Popular Science named it America's greenest city in 2008, and it regularly shows up on other lists. As you walk the streets, you see sidewalk medians decked with mini-gardens and the city is a cyclist's paradise. It also contains Washington Park, a 400-acre oasis in the middle of town with hiking trails, Japanese garden, rose garden, zoo, and Arboretum. In Portland, you're never far from reminders of our dependence upon the natural world.

After Portland I headed south to the Bay Area, to stay with my friends Ron and Sara and "nephew" Desmond, and to attend a team retreat for work. The Bay Area is also crunchy, although as a large urban area, it has lots of challenges to green living -- for example, public transportation can be almost prohibitively expensive here and the cost of living means many folks are forced to drive from distant suburbs to their jobs.

It is, however, easier to reduce household waste here. I'm actually fairly happy with the city recycling program in Houston -- and it's improving through a pilot program which will add glass to the items we can recycle. However, in much of the Bay Area (including the small town of Aptos, where we had our retreat), compost materials are also collected. This is true in many parts of the West Coast and America's larger urban areas, but it's still far from the norm.

We saw a pod of dolphins just off the beach in Aptos. It reminded all of us how we need to protect the oceans.

(No really, it did. We even talked about it.)

In Aptos, we got to enjoy one of the West Coast's particular brands of grandeur -- ocean and mountains in close proximity. I firmly believe that spending time outdoors is good for the soul and helps ground one in the necessity of living life in balance with the earth (hippie talk is done now). Hiking, walking on the beach, and just sitting outside, we were refreshed and ready to face the less-tranquil parts of life.

Backyard Harvest

Living in one of the biggest cities in the U.S., I've come to take for granted certain luxuries -- like going to the regular grocery store and finding a wide variety of organic and local foods. For the past week, however, I've been visiting my hometown, a mid-sized city in the Pacific Northwest (from that description, with any knowledge of geography, you should be able to guess the town).

Over this week, I've come face-to-face with the fact that the sustainable foodstuffs I love just aren't on the shelves at every grocery store in America. I know, I know, you're probably thinking: Catfish, haven't you picked up a Newsweek lately? You know America's grocery aisles are stocked with high-fructose country-fried bacon and pancake-on-a-stick -- are you really surprised you can't find an egg labeled with the farmer's name?

OK, I admit, if I'd thought about it, I would have realized that the organic gooseberries at my neighborhood market aren't a staple at everyone's grocery. But I was too busy stocking up on quinoa and textured-vegetable-protein to notice.

My friend Darci has come up with her own solution to the problem of finding fresh, organic, and affordable food. She's taken up urban agriculture in her own backyard.

This is Darci's garden:

Beautiful, huh? I'm a bit of a black thumb, so I had to ask her to identify the various plants (potatoes, lettuce ...). Unfortunately, the growing season in my hometown isn't too long, but backyard farmers make the most of it.

Darci also has added two chickens to her household. Penelope and Clementine live in this palatial abode:

These ladies provide fresh eggs for Darci's family. Darci's not the only one who has added chickens to the list of common urban pets (cats, dogs, ferrets ...). Apparently, backyard chickens are quite the trend -- media outlets from the New York Times to the Bay Area ABC affiliate have discussed the proliferation of coops and birdseed in densely-populated areas across the country.

So, perhaps Old MacDonald's farm was closer to McDonald's than you might expect.

Upcycled Lounge Pants

Since getting my sewing machine for Christmas, I've been beating around the bush when it comes to tackling actual wearable projects. After managing to make a small stuffed elephant that involved a great deal of precise work (done imprecisely) I decided I was ready.

I'd heard pyjama pants are the easiest clothing item to make and my copy of Sewing Green suggested they could be made with a reclaimed bed sheet.

I used to have some adorable purple chrysanthemum sheets that I haven't been using since the cat, in his kittenhood, clawed a few holes in the fitted sheet. However, I've saved them and thought they would make the perfect lounge pants.

I trimmed them with fabric from a quilter's quarter yard. Most of the sewing went smoothly, although some of the cuffs are not 100% straight and some of the hems are a bit bunchy. However, the pants are super-comfy, soft, and purple - my favorite color.

Tea With Miss Sookie

One of my favorite things about Charlaine Harris's vampire novels is the Southern gothic setting in Northern Louisiana. Heroine Sookie Stackhouse is a good Southern girl -- morally upright, church-attending, and hospitable. And a good Southern hostess always has a pitcher of iced tea available for anyone who might happen by. Every time I read one of the books and Sookie offers a guest - no matter how unwelcome - some iced tea, I feel a warm sense of recognition.

This is iced tea that I bottle at home. Directions are below.

I never really "got" iced tea until I moved to Texas. And if you're thinking to yourself: Self, what is there to "get" about iced tea? It's cold tea! -- well, then, you obviously don't live in the South. (And yes, I realize that many real Southerners don't consider Texas the south).

Here, iced tea is an obsession for many people, the way espresso is in Seattle or wine in Italy. It comes in two varieties -- sweet and unsweet. The first time I ordered iced tea at a restaurant and was asked "sweet or unsweet?" I just looked at the waitress with confusion. I didn't even know unsweet was a word.

Sweet tea is pre-sweetened, as the name implies, and it is usually so sugary it will put your teeth on edge. I think it is one of those things you just can't get used to if you weren't raised in the South. My friends from Alabama will talk excitedly about the places where you can get the best sweet tea around town, while I just shake my head. Almost every restaurant has both sweet and unsweet tea, usually served in gigantic (often styrofoam) cups.

If you want a greener option than a giant styrofoam cup with plastic lid and straw, you can make your own tea (sweet or un-) at home. Because I never knew how to make iced tea until I lived here, I'm going to give you the recipe, although many of you are probably familiar with how it's done. I like this quick and easy method, rather than messing around with cold brewing or waiting for suntea.

Step 1: Boil about 4 cups of water.

Step 2: Open 4-5 teabags. Real Southerners swear that you only make tea out of Luzianne brand tea, but I like Good Earth Original flavor. It's a little sweet and a little spicy, so it doesn't need any additions.

Step 3: Take the water off the stove and steep the teabags for 10-15 minutes.

Step 4: Let the tea cool. When it's no longer hot, pour the tea into a container and add 2 cups of cold water to the tea.

This is the stage when I like to bottle my tea. Because I'm trying to reduce the use of plastic in my kitchen, I use leftover bottles from 360 Vodka. These bottles come with a resealable cap, and are made with 85% recycled glass. If you're not going to reuse the bottle, you can even send the caps back in the pre-paid envelope 360 provides, and they'll reuse them.

Isn't this bottle pretty? And it's so useful.

But, like I said, I don't send the caps back because I use the bottles my tea. You could use any glass bottle. When the tea is partly cool, I use a heavy glass measuring cup to pour it into the bottles. I pour two cups into each bottle, then fill it the rest of the way with cold water.

Step 5: If you want sweet tea, add agave nectar to taste. Agave nectar is a nice replacement for sugar, because it dissolves easily and is thought to have health benefits.

Step 6: Put it in your fridge for a few hours and then serve with ice. Mmm.

Cute Cat Pictures

It's been awhile since we had some purely frivolous Cute Cat Pictures. Here are three to make up for it.

When my sister and I were little, she thought it was hilarious to make the cat "sit like a person." Wily doesn't look too amused:

Wily was so loungey, he reminded me of Cleopatra on her barge. Cleo-cat-ra!

Here's Cleopatra. See - the poses are nearly identical. She must have learned to lounge languidly from the sacred cats of ancient Egypt.

It was a hot one. Wily couldn't even muster the energy to pretend to chase the birds and squirrels that mock him from the telephone wire outside the window.

Precious Pachyderm

Recently I learned to sew. Correction: I re-learned how to sew. In middle school I took the required home ec classes, where I sewed a pillow that looked like a giant pencil. That was the extent of my sewing, however.

I love knitting, though, and thought that sewing would be a great next step. My mom bought me a sewing machine for Christmas, and it's taken me awhile to feel ready to tackle a project other than sewing scraps together or creating a pencil case.

I chose to create a small toy elephant from the book, Sew Everything Workshop. Because I wanted to be green, I decided to upcycle some fabric from thrift store clothing. I purchased this stunning outfit at my local Goodwill:

Wily is hoping his mama isn't going to wear this outfit. It would be so embarrassing.

And then, using techniques I learned from the book, Sewing Green, I "deconstructed" the Tommy Hilfiger men's shirt (I so wish I could have seen it on someone) and magenta shorts. In other words, I cut them up and ripped the seams.

I chose the project because it was small and looked like it wouldn't take long, and because I thought I could give the finished product to one of my nieces. What I didn't realize was that sewing around small, curvy fabric pieces is not easy.

One big mistake later (head inset sewed on backward) and a lot of trial and error, I had the following:

Boneless elephant.

All he needed was a little stuffing.

While he's not perfect, and he's not sturdy enough to go live with any of my baby nieces, I learned a lot from the project. All that sewing around corners was annoying, but I feel like a much more able seamstress now, and I'm ready to tackle some bigger projects. Project Runway, here I come!