Reading, Writing, 'Rithmatic

 "Not a reader? Now’s your chance to change that. Using your library or books you own, pick out three in three categories: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. You know the rest (read them)."  

Fiction:  Iron Flame (Empyrean #2) by Rebecca Yarros

I am loving this series.  I am also coming to appreciate the major pitfall of my favorite fiction genre (world-building science fiction/fantasy).  An author can invest excessive time dreaming up such an ornate world that they lose steam in writing the action into their series and it collapses under its own weight.  This seems to have been the case with Game of Thrones and Name of the Wind.  Conversely, Yarros leaves her world and plot a little rough around the edges but I think the compromise is worth it for the sake of keeping the momentum.  If I were her editor, I would encourage substituting "tendrils" (of hair, shadow, smoke, etc.) for some synonyms, spend a bit less time emphasizing what characters' eyebrows and jaw muscles were belying about their reactions and detail out a bit more concretely the physics laws observed within this world so the plot twists felt twistier and less like deus ex machina, but none of those edits would justify delaying the sequel(s?!).  

This was also fun to read as an aspiring writer who discovered the Bookfox's YouTube channel concurrently.  Bookfox has a video up, "9 character mistakes that scream 'a woman wrote this.'"  It was a delight to step through and score Yarros on this rubric, conceding, as Fox does, that books, particularly in this romance genre, violate the rules explicitly to create a fantastic rather than relatable character.  It reminds me a bit of a childhood videogaming and discovering a "cheat code" in a strategy guide that lifts all sorts of constraints and the omnipotent delight you can have on this limitless sabbatical before returning to the mundane discouragements of your real life; in which your health points and damage dealing abilities accrue at a more plausible rate and your boyfriend cannot read your mind.  This contrasts to Kelly Bishop's observation in her memoir (also read concurrently) that Gilmore Girls has such a cult following because the characters are treated fairly, they are lovably flawed and this is true of both genres.

The final thing I love about this series is that while it is fiction and unbalanced fantasy at that, there were self-help elements embedded within it.  Self-help/personal growth is my favorite of all genres.  In this case, the help I found was hunched over the aero handlebars of my triathlon bike, sweating buckets, checking my watch every few seconds to see how much of the two hour prescribed ride remained.  What if this bike is actually a powerful dragon I am learning to ride?  What if I can also learn how to channel the energy of that dragon?  What if that telepathic dragon can also monitor my thoughts and interject like a best friend that has been fully briefed on cognitive behavioral therapy practices when my inner critic's monologue gets too unhinged?  That fantasy lens applied to real life workouts helps them fly by with less thrash.  

Non-Fiction:  Carribbean Reef Life: A Field Guide for Divers by Mickey Charteris 

It is hard to know when you are "done" with reference Non-Fiction.  I took this with us on a 2025 Kids Sea Camp excursion to Roatan, Honduras and paired it with two laminated fish slates.  I'm 8 years rusty at scuba, so across my 8 dives, I found I was mostly focused on my buoyancy and giving the reef wide enough berth not to damage it.  I did not see the micro-fauna detailed in the book's pages like sea horses unless the dive masters pointed them out.  But this book was helpful for narrowing down which of the megafauna like parrot fish, conchs, lobster, four eyes, lionfish, grouper, turtle, etc. I had spotted.  I wasn't alarmed when the dive master speared a majestic looking lionfish because I had read that these were invasive, voracious and poisonous-spined.  There is a family of fish called a suckerfish or remora that attaches itself to larger fish and turtles.  Another diver and I chuckled bubbles watching a poor parrot fish swimming in circles trying to shake one; mutualistic relationship you say?  But I found it was helpful to "steal" the remora strategy on dry land and sit at the dive master table for meals or close to where they were facilitating a class on fish ID (using this same book as reference) to get even more detail on how these sites compared to other Caribbean locations and to themselves in prior years.  i.e. turtles here are skittish compared to Hawaii and even more so on this part of the island where there was more recent history of hunting them.  File that away as a difficulty factor the next time I am admiring stunning photography of Roatan turtles.  

Since we plan to return to Sea Camp in future years as our kid ages into scuba certification age, on other sites in the Caribbean, I will hang onto this book for reference.  I'm not sure I want to go full-on into underwater photography as it is expensive equipment to schlep around the international airport terminal.  There's also something fundamentally "not living in the present" when you're diving with your attention trained on a view finder (even if I am envious of its magnification capabilities).  I would definitely put myself through an intensive drawing or painting course before the next trip to help improve my memory for the details of what I saw underwater.  It might also be useful to pair with a book like those Tristan Gooley wrote for dry land to take a more "Sherlock Holmesian" approach to what you can infer about an environment based on small clues and interactions between plants, animals, and the terrain.     

Poetry:  Gold by Rumi/Translated by Gafori 

How to Read a Book (Adler) suggests first reading the poem through in its entirety, then reading it aloud, then take a vacation from it and revisit.  

First read:  oops, I got bogged down in the background that Adler warned me to avoid.  Now I am watching YouTube videos of Whirling Dervishes and how lovely that phrase, Whirl Derv, the touch of assonance making the first syllables almost rhyme, is that where Farsi has more versatility than English?  

I didn't realize how centrally this Shams character was in Rumi's work...  How odd it is to my westernized ears for a man to speak so openly of love for another man.  I am immediately suspecting the Shams-Rumi dynamic had some carnal undertones.  Wasn't there some of that within the Greek epics too?  Patroclus and Achilles?  I wonder if my belief that men's love and lust are so intertwined is a product of my culture or my lived experience.  Platonic friendship between genders is so often problematic.  My western ears also hear poems that sound more like collaborations to drive cross-traffic to Shams' social media channel- If you love this idea, you'll love my teacher, Shams!  How cynical and commerce-warped is the lens I look at the world.  

The elaboration of the title was delightful: "Gold, the title of this book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry.  Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculations, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being...  Gold is the deepest love."     

While I love seeking the references to gold within the leaves now, some other ideas feel tediously repetitive as I read cover to cover in the space of a day.  So many allusions to getting drunk on the wine of love.  How much experience would Rumi and his audience have had on being inebriated if alcohol is haram?  So many allusions to the vastness of the ocean and being a sinking ship within it, did he had real experience to draw on?  Afghanistan and Turkey aren't exactly famous for their beaches.  Maybe he had some exposure to the Black and Caspian Seas?    

How arbitrary it all seems.  Persian can't always be literally translated, the translators themselves become derivative poets.  Plus, he'd be writing in a culture 300 years before Shakespeare and we all know how weird some of The Bard's phrases seem today.    Nevertheless, I love this-- 

Ferment like wine

in the barrel of your body.

Second read:  in small sips, out loud, on my feet, sometimes whirling like a dervish.  The message of this body of work is still so narrow, I wouldn't say these opened the floodgates of thought-provoking joy.  It is, however a beautiful way to punctuate one's day.  I still love the idea deep love is gold and all the metaphors that come with it.  I love the above passage and a few others made me smile.  Noticing the word-play on "oil" and "water" being an indeterminate quantity and how if you take them out of their vessels, they literally become one.  

...There's one spirit in countless bodies, 

One oil in countless almonds, 

One meaning in countless words

Uttered by countless tongues.  

Shatter the jugs, the water is one...    

But even so, there is so much talk of getting drunk on spiritual wine, I felt like I was the sober, responsible adult squelching across the sticky floor of a frat house at dawn, doing what I could to square away the empty pizza boxes rather than surrendering to the revelry.  

Cleaning Up- 3. It's Not Easy Being Green

 

Today (4/2/2025) we held a family meeting with our 6 year old Young Cultivator (Fallon) to discuss what going green means and some things we could do.  

Since today is also trash pick-up day, we immediately got to work picking up trash and glass litter along our sidewalk.  We have a landscaping crew tidy up every fortnight but a lot accumulated in the week since their last visit.  Fallon tackled the "less gross" items like fly away candy wrappers.  Mom got to test out her new casabella "buy it for life" dish gloves picking up a cache of rusty razorblades dumped in the grass along the sidewalk.  We are across the street from an elementary school!  Fallon offered to pay mom $1/dog(?) turd from her piggy bank.  This was the going rate we offer when she is inclined to clean up the small family dog's deposits in the yard.  Mom was not convinced deposits of this size could have originated from a dog, and declined the offer, muttering something about the need to save for college and that biowaste was organic enough to break down on its own eventually.  Alas, our sidewalk is therefore not immaculate, but in much better shape than it was.  Once upon a snarkier time, Mom maintained a "trash faeries" instagram account documenting the crazy things that seemed to materialize overnight on the verge along the sidewalk.  No mattresses, milk crates of used motor oil, or Christmas trees today, but here is the 2 gallon bucket haul we collected just from our corner of the block.  

There had been some discussion of sharing seeds.  As it is spring and few things have viable seeds to share at this point, we had to improvise.  Fallon collected and packaged pine needles, dandelion greens, and materials for making humming bird nests.  Mommy transplanted some extra tomato seedlings into warp pipes, corralled several houseplant housewarming gifts that did not spark joy, and combined leftover trick or treat fun sized playdough giveaways with small seed packs of cilantro.  Everything was priced at "free" except for the Big Stick which Fallon insisted was worth $1.  To Mom's surprise, it was the first item to go; with a nice lady who was looking for ginger plants but could use it as a clothes line.  Mom thought it might also be helpful for scaring away whatever unchaperoned direwolves are frequenting the barrio overnight.  

Fallon and mom got in a debate about what types of foods have the highest water footprint.  Fallon felt almonds were problematic, perhaps she has been watching Pom Wonderful Central Valley agricultural vs urban water rights exposes.  Mom felt meat and animal products needed more water because they were higher up the food chain and consumed the plants and their water footprint before being harvested.  In our evening family debriefing, we asked ChatGPT to weigh in and on how much water per 100 calories of food produced for common whole food grocery items.  Mom thinks she won this meat vs nuts debate, but was chagrined to learn 100 calories of coffee tops the charts at 8,000 liters of water...  Let's think of that as a spice, no one is drinking coffee for gains, right?  How do you reckon corn takes 625 L, wheat 471 L, but a product made from those inputs, tortillas takes only 400?  What is going on with apples and lettuce needing more than cheese?  Is it supply chain spoilage?  Something fishy with ChatGPT?  We've been watching The Martian in installments and it looks like if one were to pull a Mark Watney and subsist for a year on just potatoes, they would need 719,000 gallons of water to do it.  That's like draining the backyard swimming pool 22 times for one person!

Sol 1 of this merit badge down, 20 more days to go!  

Sol 3 (4/4) - we read The Lorax, discussed and made a list of ways inspired by the story to live greener.  Mom rates it 5/5 stars.  Fallon rates it 4.5/5 stars because she feels the author took too many poetic liberties-- BIGGERING is not a real word.  

Sol 5 (4/7) - we read The Good Garden (Katie Smith Milway) to learn more about Honduras, where we are traveling in 2 days.  Mom was moved by this because she is also reading Open Veins of Latin America and most of the "technology" the peripatetic teacher introduced to the town like milpas and terracing was invented by Mayans and Incans in this region but seem to have been wiped out over several centuries of epidemics, resource extraction and sugar/coffee monoculture to fuel triangle trade.  Like the protagonist, Maria Luz, Fallon retired to the garden to plant her "cash crop" of radishes, for her next plant market driveway sale.  She couldn't resist also putting in a row of purple carrots which we may remember to look for despite their long germination time as they are planted along the faster germinating radishes.  Disappointed we didn't have any chitted potatoes to replicate Matt Damon's experiment in the Martian, she improvised with a purple sweet potato.  Mom has never seen anyone propagate  potatoes in quite this fashion and has doubts about top-dressing the mounds with pill bugs, but she remains open-minded and relieved Fallon did not hew so closely to Damon's method as to top dress with humanure.  

Sol 19 (4/21) - We have returned from a spring break trip to Roatan, Honduras.  At Kids Sea Camp, we learned how to snorkel/remembered how to dive and explored the second largest reef in the world.  We attended a presentation about coral bleaching and efforts to restore elk and staghorn coral by propagating it in nurseries and epoxying specimen back onto the reef in key areas to repopulate bleached or damaged areas.  Many things can cause coral to bleach including chemical sunscreens (we had packed a reef safe zinc-based mineral one), warmer sea water from climate change, and even bacteria which cause cholera/diarrhea and can run off mainland with rudimentary sewage disposal systems.  At the closing ceremony of Kids Sea Camp, the organizers encouraged families to keep diving because it is such a compelling way to appreciate what is happening to our planet.  

When we got home, mom found an organization which helps educate about carbon footprints and the actions we can take to offset them.  Mom paid to offset the family airfare and plans to do the same for trips planned to Portland, OR; Minneapolis, MN; and Barcelona, Spain.  

Sol 20 (4/22) Earth Day.  We read aloud What is Climate Change?  We learned that Earth Day is 55 years old today, having been started by President Nixon's legislation about clean air in 1970.  

Sol 21 (4/23)  We used our repaid Kiva loans to make a new microloan to Juan Ramon, a Honduran coffee farmer/bodega owner to buy urea fertilizer, foliate sprays, and insecticides.  This was inspired by learning about the extortionary coyotes mentioned in the Good Garden (sol 5) and Mom's admiration for the quality of the coffee available on vacation in Roatan--  even in the giant buffet carafe.  

Sol 23 (4/25) While waiting on the pool deck for a swim lesson, we read the graphic novel pages of World Without Fish and compared our experiences on the reef to the little girl (turned adult marine biologist) in the story.  

Sol 24 (4/26) A pre-owned copy of Made You Look: How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know (by Shari Graydon) arrived.  We are reading a chapter or so a day of this graphic novel to be more aware of when and how we are being persuaded by advertisers.  Mom relishes the irony of now "promoting" this book product on our blog, but we have not been paid to do so and think that if you read this book, it might actually save you money.  It doesn't directly address "cleaning up," we think it will be a force multiplier for avoiding buying things we don't need and will be disappointed with which would then go into a landfill.  For instance, we talked about how the "toys" in McDonald's Happy Meals are often just promotional materials to encourage us to see new movies, play new video games, or collect Pokemon cards.  

Sol 26 (4/28) We bike/ran to the playground, practicing stopping at intersections and sharing the sidewalk.  On the way back, we used our city's app to report 2 graffitied walls.  We talked a bit about why people tag, gangs, how fighting can be dangerous (two kids have been shot in front of our house because of gang disputes and it is so sad to see how the survivors keep candle shrines going in remembrance).   

Sol 27 (4/29) The end of driveway Plant Market was again in business.  We greeted a lot of neighbors, but didn't move merchandise today.  Mom eyed the many racks of bananas that have set and thinks we might need to do this again, or something similarly inspired (i.e. "take what you need" farm stand).  Between customers, we noticed our potato propagation (Sol 5) was not growing and in fact was getting eaten by the rolly pollies.     

Going Green - Intermediate

 

"Make your own soap" 

Sapindus mukorossi, the Indian Soapberry ould grow in our climate if one were so inclined to add a 30-50' tree to their urban overstory.  Most preparations as laundry detergent call for throwing a few dried berries in a sachet and washing as normal.  You could get 2-3 washings out of them.  Birtwhistle in Clean & Green notes that powder detergents do not have adequate time to dissolve in short cycles (with cold water).  This detergent cast on dark fabric is my main, if only occasional, laundry complaint with Charlie's Soap.  I thought soapberries might also be more efficacious if they were in a liquid format as well.  At a minimum, it would give me the option to clean things besides laundry with my soap.      

On a stove, I boiled 200 mL water with 12 soap nuts.  This should cover roughly 7 loads of laundry, which amounts to a week-long experiment for us.  I was delighted to return to the pot to the berries obscured by froth, with bubbles climbing almost to the lid.  I removed from heat, allowed to cool, strained into a mason jar, and discarded the nuts into the compost.  

If I were doing this again, I would have doubled the recipe to thoroughly submerge the soap nuts.  However, I am not sure I would make an attempt as husband objects to the smell of the boiling berries.  Birtwhistle's book contains similar recipes for Hedera helix (English ivy), an institutional/commercial property favorite ground cover around here.  I've planted my own drift, but might have to pack scissors and borrow some from my business neighbors.  She also recommends "conkers" or horse chestnuts, but I believe our climate zone is too high to have many of these specimens.   

 

"Make your own laundry detergent"

Following Birtwhistle's guidance, we dole out 2 tablespoons of soapberry syrup and 1 tablespoon of washing soda (the advantage being it softens hard water).  So far, no discernable difference (better or worse) in its cleaning power.   

"Make your own all purpose cleaners, window cleaner, floor cleaner."  

My go-to all purpose cleaner is white vinegar.  I use it for windows and counters.  If something is really caked on, I use baking soda as a mild abrasive.  The team that refurbished our hardwood floors insisted the best cleaning approach was a damp mop of warm water.  If something really sticky (or slippery) got on the floors, I spot-clean that area of the hardwood with Bronner's soap (or soap berry syrup).