obviously I'm not here

Hi my two readers! Long time no see!

Well, I've dropped the blog, obviously. I'm actually thinking of starting a new one - openly, as myself :-) since we've decided to join the hubby in China.

If you're interested, in knowing the link when I get it up and running, let me know and I'll forward it to you.

neighbor

Everything I need to know

for my 4th kyu test, that is...

bold items are attacks, everything else is a response to that particular attack (italicized are previous, 5th kyu, requirements that I still need to know). Responses (techniques) are repeated, but often with different applications or introductory steps that are compatible with whatever attack is being performed. Several also have dual forms related to where you pass your uke (omote or in-front-of and ura or behind)

Gyakuhanmi katatetori

ikkyo (omote, ura)
nikkyo (omote, ura)
sankyo (omote, ura)
iriminage (jodan, chudan, geidan)
shihonage (omote, ura)
kotegaeshi
uchi kaiten nage (omote, ura)
soto kaiten nage (omote, ura)
uchi kaiten sankyo (omote, ura)
soto kaiten sankyo (omote, ura)
hanmi handachi shihonage

Ai hanmi katatetori

ikkyo (omote, ura)
nikkyo (omote, ura)
sankyo (omote, ura)
iriminage (jodan, chudan, geidan)
kotegaeshi
uchi kaiten nage (omote, ura)
soto kaiten nage (omote, ura)
uchi kaiten sankyo (omote, ura)

Katatori

ikkyo (omote, ura)
nikkyo (omote, ura)
sankyo (omote, ura)
suwariwaza ikkyo (omote, ura)
suwariwaza nikkyo (omote, ura)
suwariwaza sankyo (omote, ura)

Ryotetori

tenchinage
kokyuho
shihonage (omote, ura)
hanmi handachi shihonage
suwariwaza kokyuho

Morotetori

kokyuho
kokyunage

Shomenuchi

ikkyo (omote, ura)
nikkyo (omote, ura)
sankyo (omote, ura)
iriminage
suwariwaza ikkyo (omote, ura)
suwariwaza nikkyo (omote, ura)
suwariwaza sankyo (omote, ura)

Yokomenuchi

shihonage (omote, ura)
suwariwaza ikkyo (omote, ura)

Ushirowaza Katate Eritori

Ikkyo (omote, ura)

Ushiro tekubetori

sankyo (omote, ura?)

Ushiro ryokatatori

kotegaeshi

Tsuki

iriminage
kotegaeshi

******
I know, it won't make sense to non-aikidoka. In all, 46 different techniques. I'll only be tested on a portion, but I don't know which portion, so I have to prepare for all of it. It's possible that I'll be excused from the suwariwaza and hanmihandachi versions because they require working from a kneeling, toes curled under, position and I've only just started doing that again, post-broken-toe. It's possible, too, that I'll not be excused from it! We are required to learn both the Eastern and Western Regional requirements. Lucky us.

aikido roots

I don't think I ever imagined a post that would fit under both the aikido and the plants label, but here it is.

I broke my toe on Saturday. It's the pinkie, funny little stubby thing that it is. Afterward, Sensei said I changed my mind mid-ukemi and had I just kept going with the way the motion was taking me I'd have been ok. I honestly don't remember what I was doing. We were doing beginners' randori (freestyle) which means slow and dorky. Apparently I excelled on the dorky aspect. All I remember is that things were fine and then my toe told me otherwise. I rolled, coming up into seiza (kneeling). Sensei said, "Are you ok?" and I just mumbled something like, "I don't think so, I'm going to sit over here."

I took advantage of the novelty of health insurance the next day, since it was blue and swollen and I could hardly walk. Nifty little fracture - and nothing much to be done about it. The doctor suggested a hefty dose of advil every few hours, and while I nodded, I pretty much decided to ignore that advice.

Instead, Monday found me out at the community garden, hobbling about with a shovel, digging for comfrey roots. Comfrey grows beautifully where there are a few leaky spigots. I looked for a plant that showed signs of dying back (thereby putting more energy into its roots), but most were green and full of vitality. I dug some roots for myself, but I also transplanted some to my garden plot.

To prepare a poultice, I mash chunks of root up in my mortar, add a few tablespoons of water and heat slowly to just slightly above body temperature. It's interesting, but I can see a little vapor rising from the root mash, even though the pan (a pyrex baking dish) isn't hot. At just the right temperature and as I'm stirring it, it all suddenly coalesces into goo. It's slippery and sticks together en-masse. It has a consistency very different from its fresh state, which is crisp (not as fibrous as I'd expected). Both my kids' reacted with "Ewww..." and I know they were thinking it looked like a giant brown snot.

But I've got to tell you it's the most delicious feeling to have it on my broken toe. It's comfortable and soothing. It seems to not cool off even though I keep it on all night - like it just maintains a cozy temperature and I don't even notice that I have my foot wrapped in goo (cold goo would be so unpleasant!) and it's healing fast. Today, five days later and after being on my feet all week (at the garden Monday with kids and goats, Tuesday walking all day at the wetlands with a second grade field trip, and working the last two days...), it seems to be healing so quickly. I still have a little limp and I'm careful to not flex or bend that toe too much, but I have to say that comfrey is great!

Details: scientific name: Symphytum oficinale
so well established in Britain that it's unclear where it actually originated
other names besides Comfrey: knitbone, boneset, bruisewort
it likes to be well fed and watered
it looks like this:

though all the official websites, like this otherwise pretty good wikipedia article, mention the toxicity issues of certain compounds isolated out of comfrey. Keep in mind comfrey has been consumed, internally, both as food and as medicine in cultures and traditions wherever it is found. Trouble arises when we isolate pieces of plants, taking them out of their whole-plant context, and introduce unnatural quantities into test situations. Be smart, read a lot, talk to others who know plants, talk to the plants themselves to find out what's safe and what's called for.

Other sites: comfrey central
comfrey as herb of the month

doing real work

It's apparent that now that I'm working, my "free" time has pretty much disappeared. Hence my near-complete disappearance from here (for the few who still stop by).

So I got a job - of a sort I've been eyeing for quite a while. I'm now a bike mechanic!

Upon first assessment, I noticed, wryly, that I'm making way less now that I do real work. When I did fake work, as an AA within the UC system, I made almost twice as much as I do now. It still wasn't much since I was only a temp and never got above the classification of AAII. The higher you go in the system, up through an analyst classification, the less real the work is, and the more you make. Ok, maybe I'm a little harsh (slightly) but that's because a lot of people do little more than push papers past their desks toward other's desks, pulling in salaries and benefits and filling their days with something important-sounding.

Back then, when I was flitting its edges, I knew that if I kept up with it, I'd end up up like my co-workers: 45 years old, bitter, ailing, complaining, harnessed. I'll still end up 45, but I darned well want to spend the interim hanging around with interesting people, doing something useful, supporting some aspect of my community. I never liked that I was part of a great sucking sound called, "there goes your tax money." I could finish my work in two hours and still have to sit there, with the lights and the computer on, for another six; wasting my day, drawing out the time between phone calls and photocopies. Yet I was rewarded for that, for inefficiency, for sitting there... like everyone in that system is rewarded. Sure, lots of things got done, but whether or not those were things that SHOULD be done is questionable - like stacks of colored, one-sided, photocopies put into presentation binders to be handed out to board members who only looked at them once and then either threw them away or, hopefully, recycled them. There were lots of instances of work done just for its sake, for the appearance.

I don't mean to sound so smug, but there are lots of ways things could be streamlined in the public sector. Of course it means the loss of jobs - and in a way the government is a giant self-propagating organism that rarely contracts once there's a growth mandate. So, somebody's filled my shoes in that old position, and so it goes...

Now, I'm part time, making a buck or two above minimum wage (I think... what is CA's minimum wage, anyway?), with no benefits, on my feet all day, constantly working, troubleshooting, problem solving, learning, hanging out with interesting people, talking when we want, quiet when we want.

This is a job that I see no problem keeping - what with gas prices going the inevitable direction, more people will be on bikes. Also I live in a very bike friendly city. Being a bike mechanic has been one of those things that's been in the back of my mind for years - an idea, akin to other trades like plumbing and maintenance, that I've eyed since I first started thinking about peak oil and the like. Knowing that the economy has been headed for some variation of a collapse-theme, I wanted to get a job doing something that would still exist for a while. It also fits right in with my need to learn skills that are useful to myself personally, and to my community (whatever that may be), something that will be in demand wherever I end up.

at the beginning again

Our dojo follows the academic calendar because we're loosely affiliated with the university. Each quarter we get a new student or two and lose one or two as schedules change and people move on. Fall seems to bring more (though a few senior students told me that summers often have higher enrollment). This summer we dwindled down to three people - I was gone for most of it (in Maryland) and N. graduated and left for an internship in India. Others were home for the summer (these were the university students who didn't stay in town).

With fall quarter starting back up we've got two or three returning students (outside of the five of us who are regulars) and two new ones. It's nice to have an infusion of new energy. I was starting to feel stuck, back to fumbling and nervousness under Sensei's scrutiny, out of sync with the little flow I did have.

Sensei announced that we'll be testing in December (not April like he'd originally said a month ago). Oh. Heck. That means me. Time to figure out 4th kyu. It's a good thing we have new students so we can review basics with them and I can try to figure it all out again because we were practicing 2nd and 3rd kyu techniques for most of September and I was flubbing most of it.

According to one of my sempais who has had a chance to watch the dojo's dynamics and the ebbing of enrollment, Sensei has actually been modifying his teaching style in the last year or two. He used to be much more...hmmm I don't know the word I'm looking for, maybe... well, let's just say that his bedside manner left something to be desired. I've mentioned it before - he comes across as very old school. Tough, stressful, demanding, unforgiving. So some students left a few years ago when another dojo opened up.... ah, I think I'm rambling...

Anyway, my point is that I'm glad to hear things explained to the newbies (and Sensei seems even more patient and willing to explain things than he has been the last few months), now I get to work on basics once again (like getting my head out of the way when I roll!) and learn the things I missed the first time around (such as not really understanding exactly what we're doing with seated kokyoho! I mean I can just kind of do it, but I don't have any idea how to explain what I'm doing - as one of the new students figured today when I couldn't tell him).

So, hurray for cycles and a return to the beginning. I can't believe I've been doing this for a year!

schizophrenic times

If you are not preparing for multiple contradictory future scenarios, then you are not preparing but gambling. =Jeff Vail

This is me, in a nutshell. Not that I spend all my time preparing for the future (trying to honor my Buddhist roots in the present), but it's something I definitely keep in the fore of decisions and plans and speculations. I'm not nearly as analytical as some, so I'm not making a science of tracking current events in an attempt to hone down a prediction of what's to come. Instead I think things could go in any direction - either the status quo will be maintained or it won't. With that in mind, I like what Steven at Deconsumption once said: whatever decisions I might make for the future, they should only be ones I'd want to make anyway, regardless of what may actually come to pass in the world.

So, to most, I probably appear pretty normal - a mostly-at-home mom, trying to figure out what's for dinner and whether or not everyone's done their homework. That's the presentable me, the one that maintains life as I'd maintain it should things just keep chugging along as they always have. Then there's the idiosyncratic me (by usual standards) which has me learning really varied things (bow-making, goat care and herbal medicine making, for example) in order to a) obtain skills for personal use and b) assure that I can be a useful part of a viable community (one way to assure relevance, as opposed to GWBush's method which is simply to veto legislation).

I described myself in a job interview the other day (saving that for another post) as "mostly realistic, with a large amount of romantically hopeful idealism mixed in with a good dose of doom and gloom, just to balance it all out."

This is all related to this post, as well.

The next step in preparations and fun & games in another post...

this week's harvest

Fruiting season continues and I, therefore, continue to pick and preserve.

More elderberries and some pomegranates,

more apples and some hongzao - also known as jujube or Chinese dates

The pomegranates are being eaten daily and a batch are contributing to a pomegranate infused vinegar (which I'll probably give as a gift, to be used in vinaigrettes). The hongzao (jujubes) are being dried (and eaten fresh) after which I'll be able to use them in traditional Chinese dishes like babaozhou (eight treasures porridge).

Jujubes are medicinal as well as culinary, being considered a general tonic herb useful in supporting liver function and alleviating stress. The fruits, after being dried, are often prepared simply by decoction with the resulting tea aiding, for example, in postpartum recovery. It makes a refreshing chilled drink, though we sometimes drink it hot in the winter.

Prior to discovering these trees nearby we would buy imported hongzao - now I'm glad to have a local supply (that are now drying in my living room).

I've also finally started elderberry elixir (recipe courtesy of Kiva). I'd originally planned to make it using the mead I made two years ago, but it turned out that the last bottle was off so I had to dump it (wah!). I used rum instead of brandy because I also wanted to make vanilla extract with rum. I've got another batch of mead (actually it's t'ej, an Ethiopian honey wine via the book Wild Fermentation) waiting to catch wild yeast right now. FIngers crossed, though if, after another day, nothing appears to be happening, I may throw in a few elderberries and their native yeasts to get things moving.

The elixir is on the alter, being watched over and empowered by the medicine Buddha.

dreams

I miss Dantseng, though he's doing well in Beijing. He's actually visiting his family this week since it's mid-Autumn festival. He said he slept a lot on the train and that he realized he's been exhausted from this past few months.

I have to admit, though, there's one thing I like about sleeping alone - my dreams aren't interrupted. I get so cranky if my dreams are stopped short but lately I've been getting enough sleep and I've been dreaming and remembering my dreams.

Last night, though, I had a traumatic dream - that D. had cancer and knew he only had a month to live. He was calm and accepting (or shocked and unreacting?), but throughout the dream I couldn't breathe. I was wheezing and in shock, panicked. He refused to see a doctor (smart in one sense that if he did only have one month left, a doctor wouldn't be much help other than to dispense toxic drugs with severe side effects, but not smart, I remember thinking in the dream, if in fact it was a false diagnosis (and not sure where the diagnosis came from)). I remember he indicated that he simply wanted to be quiet and peaceful and he wanted medicine I prepared. My lungs were constricted, my breath shuddering, I didn't know what medicine I could make. I didn't want it to end so quickly, like that. I've felt a little on-edge today, because of that dream

Later a dream of monks (Burma?) on the street. A few weeks ago I dreamed of D.'s "vulnerable gall bladder," but when I inquired, he said he's been fine (though he has had gall bladder issues in the past)... and the night before last I dreamed of O.L.'s teacher, in a school meeting where somehow somebody had gotten ahold of a portion of a letter I'd written and was misquoting me. O.L.'s teacher then quoted a section of Fern Hill and I looked at him, startled, and finished the quote (and retrieved the letter which I'd not intended to be circulated and which had some obscure reference to "sullied" and "motherhood" in the same sentence but which didn't really make sense.

Last week, I dreamed of a bombed city, and the next day there was news of Israel's attacks in Syria. But there are daily newsreports about bombings and such that I don't count that as a pre-cognizant dream or anything like that. Merely chance and an easy one at that given the state of the world.

critical nodes are all that the global system hinges on (related: pipeline blast in Mexico that disrupted factories). Here's a US one: infrastructure failure - the increasing expense needed to maintain the increasing complexity of "the system" (see also the bridge collapses)...

something I have made

I've been scattered between what I "should" be doing and what I want to be doing, mixed in with a whole lot of distraction about what I want. Just on a daily level here, not a deeper philosophical life-direction kind of thing.

Like this instant. I'm blogging instead of washing the dishes. In a few minutes I will probably clean the guinea pig cage unless the urge to go to the art supply store gets me first. Or there's the paperwork (pages and pages) that the girls' teachers need returned in the next few days. It's getting filled out slowly, but I'm kind of thinking of getting out Oser Lamo's skirt first and sewing on a few tiers (peasant style skirt that she and I are working on together - but boy, if I'm distracted easily, she's worse!

She gets excited about starting craft projects but isn't that into the actual working to finish them). Or there are snaps to sew on doll clothes. Oh and a new idea to make "cardboard" trees for them to use when they're playing with their toy horses (their big allowance splurges - and I think it's be more fun to make trees and landscape elements rather than buying them). So much for studying Chinese.

There's always the pressure, though, of the well-trained housekeeper bit of me (well, not exactly well-trained, but at least desirous of some degree of order in house). It's a small house for all the stuff we have - really I need a large studio! So the housekeeping and the creativity always fight it out.

Usually the cleaning up wins because if it doesn't get cleaned up there's NO SPACE to do anything (like something fundamental such as sit down). But every once in a while the creating wins.

For example: a simple pincushion (yeah, I know, felting was all the rage a few years ago when I made this and it's kind of blown over since then... but, well, so what! This pincushion is great in my portable sewing box.). Just look online for instructions for making a felt ball and you can do all sorts of things with them (made into beads for example, or once I even did a community event once where kids made little planets for Earth Day - wonder if I still have mine?)

Anyway. It's a pity I don't have this kind of life where I could have a studio and free days for moodling with ideas and creations and still somehow survive in the "real world."

I have fit a few things in the last two weeks - a little sewing plus shrinkydink nametags for O.L.'s and S.D.'s friends who live in other countries (Korea, Ghana & Japan) - shown here pre-shrink. They have holes punched in them and post-shrink were threaded onto embroidery floss.

100

100th post was on 6/27 which was also my grandmother's 100th birthday.

So much for my altruistic ideal to engage in a craft-blogger custom (so much for being a craft-blogger) and do a give-away.... maybe next time.