Monday, November 17, 2008

The Cinderella introduction

After making up oral versions of the Cinderella story, I decided to introduce her to some written versions. Since I am anti-Disney (but I am secretly planning a 'some day' Disney trip!), I decided to go a more traditional route and asked our children's librarian for help. Unbeknown to me there are many cultural iterations of Cinderella. So I picked these three for starts. My favorite was the Native American Algonquin Rough faced girl. Its a little dark but comes through strongly conveying good vs. evil. We also loved Cendillon a Caribbean Cinderella story for its fun French creole words which we now use in our everyday conversations. Its close to a Disney though. The Indonesian version The Gift of the Crocodile was my least favorite. I don't like violent depictions of any kind in kids books; And in this case the Crocodile eats up the evil step-mother.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Curry and Rice Girl

Anjali calls herself the curry and rice girl at the dinner table. The child loves curry, spices and all. Her consumption had me concerned about growth hormones and antibiotics given to animals. So this fall we got a CSA (community supported agriculture) membership with the Deck Family Farm in Eugene, OR. We order the meat online and they bring it to our Farmers Market every Saturday, and during the winter, will even ship it. You can also go to their farm and pick up the meat. Albeit, its expensive, but you can taste the quality of the meat and feel really good about how the animals are raised (and slaughtered) and the environmental impact. The meat and the lamb are amazingly tasty and much better for you than mass processed ones. The chicken comes as a whole bird, and the farm sent this urban gal a YouTube video on how to cut a chicken (never done it)!

Check out Eat Wild for information on local grass feeding farms and why it’s good for your body. What started the change was Michael Pollans’ eye opening book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. The catalyst was the melamine contamination in China (aghast).

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Obama's Time


The Oregonian had a great cover on Nov 5th. We have been celebrating all week! I had too much wine and chocolate cake on election night. It was awesome!

Halloween


We had such a fun Halloween complete with a home made costume, a carved spooky pumpkin and trick o' treating! This is my favorite US holiday and its not quite Hallmark'ish (yet!). Some folks in our neighborhood went all out... with buried coffins in the yard and wandering grim reapers on the street. It was spooky! My least favorite part was all the candy we got. Especially those with things like high fructose corn syrup and red # 40. I asked Anjali to pick 5 pieces of candy and said she could eat them over 5 days. On the first day she picked a cherry sucker (with red #40 no doubt) and on the second day she forgot all about the candy!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Vote!

No one undecided here... wow and what a turnout across the nation, and fabulous job by the Obama campaign in bringing the vote out. Nail biting till tomorrow...

Saturday, November 1, 2008

First Time!

I took a photo of my ballot, just so I have proof that I did it, for the first time. Boy I tell you... voting is complicated and it took me about half an hour to read about all the (other) candidates running for local and state offices not to mention all the local measures... phew (I voted no on expanding the elephant space at the zoo, and yes to linking teacher pay to performance, and no to having English as a second language in schools for more than two years). You get the drift.
Oregon is the ONLY state that does ALL the voting by mail, and its a very cool process. We dropped our ballots at the local library and even witnessed the election officials haul off the box with my ballot inside. So I am pretty confident about my vote. I doubt I'd be getting any sleep between now and Wednesday, though.